Interview with Ira Verdell Lott, 2001

THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: Segregation In Austin and the Priesthood INTERVIEW WITH: Ira Verdell Lott (Tape 1 of 2)
DATE: 17 May 2001
PLACE:
INTERVIEWER: Sarah Massey
TAPE 1, SIDE 1
M: Today is Thursday, March 7 – May 17, 2001. My name is Sarah Massey and I’m with the Institute of Texan Cultures. I’m here today to interview Ira Verdell Lott. And he was born and raised in Austin, but I’ll let him tell you about that. Ira, when is your birthday?
L: June 2, 1934.
M: Okay. And were you born in Austin?
L: In Austin, Travis County.
M: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about your family -your brothers and sisters?
L: Uh, I’m the fifth of six children - five boys and one girl. My...it was a nuclear family: my father and mother. My mother was originally...is...was originally from Travis County; my father from Goliad. And all of my early life was spent in Travis County, in Austin, Texas, my education, public school education. My family is basically is a middle-class family in the black community. You probably would think of us as upper-middle class. That would be, Ira Verdell Lott 2
well, for that period...for that time because my father was L: a businessman in lumber and real estate. My father... my father was educated at Tuskegee – Tuskegee Institute. He was there probably during the time of Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and those two influenced his thinking. And we can talk about that later. My mother was born in Travis County, and she went to Sam Houston College, which today we would probably think of it as a junior...what we would call a community college.
M: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
L: Small college for Negroes at that time. And that’s where my father and mother met in, I think, in the early 1900s. And started their family there. My father had come to Sam Houston and, as I understand it, he might have been teaching carpentry or something - that’s what he took at Tuskegee. And had come to Austin and was either doing carpentry or teaching carpentry, and met my mother. And they married and started their family. They moved to Victoria, where my oldest brother was born, and spent some time there. My mother did not like the Victoria area, and the...they would...his family was from Cologne, which is a small community there. And she didn’t like that life at all, and I guess encouraged him, and so they moved back to Travis County and started the family there. And my father was in...did carpentry for a number of years. And then about...Ira Verdell Lott 3
it would have been during the ‘30s, or late ‘20s, he started a lumber business and used...started out as used lumber and
L: that type thing. And so, that’s...
M: How did your father get...really your parents were very well educated for the times.
L: For the times.
M: And how did your father get from Cologne to Tuskegee?
L: I asked my oldest brother that once, and he probably... he said he walked or rode a horse. In those days...
M: Yeah. That’s how he got there physically. I mean, I was just curious how...
L: Well, as I understand it, you see, Booker T. Washington in those days would make tours through the South...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...and would call together leading men, you know, of the community. So my father would have been a young boy at that time, but from what I understand he – Booker T. Washington - would ride the train, and when he would get to small towns, some of the people whom he had educated...
M: Um.
L: You see, he had a network. And I don’t have the names of the men in those small towns, and they would come together and, you know, he would talk about his idea of education at Tuskegee. And, you know, invite young men to come – I don’t know about women in those days.Ira Verdell Lott 4
M: Yeah, yeah.
L: But it was probably young men, you know, and so... But I asked my brother – my oldest brother – how did Daddy get L: to...get to Tuskegee? And he said he probably walked. Now that I think about it he might have gone on the train.
M: Yeah.
L: But in those days it would have been financed by the community, you know, something like that.
M: Yeah.
L: And then when you get to Tuskegee, you earned your keep...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...by building that Institution. So that was...how would I put that together?
M: And then where did you live in Austin, since most of your life was in Austin?
L: In Austin. Near Tillotson College, which, you know, is near the present day what we call the State Cemetery. In the...when I grew up we called it the Confederate Cemetery. To the very...and I was thinking about that last night – it’s very interesting. Since we were talking about the whole thing of racism in Austin, and segregation. When I think...it was very interesting that the street that was immediately around the Confederate Cemetery, as well as I can remember, was paved.Ira Verdell Lott 5
M: Um.
L: But when you crossed the line, you were no longer around that particular property, it was gravel or just dirt – I can’t remember. When I go to Austin now, everything is L: all paved and, but when I grew up the streets were all dirt. And that’s my symbol of what Austin is today – everything is all paved up, prettified, and the name has been changed.
M: Was there a college there when you were growing up? L: Oh. So there was Tillotson College, which was a one-block down from the State Cemetery. But there was also Sam Houston College, which was over on present day – it would be 35 – Interstate 35 – which, now we were talking about this, where the Marriott Hotel – you know to localize it.
M: Um.
L: And so Tillotson College – well, Tillotson College was founded by missionaries of the Church of Christ, I believe. And it was a girl’s school - a missionary school for girls. Sam Houston was formed by United...by Methodists, and it was inter-...you know...
M: Mixed.
L: Yeah. Or collegiate – that type of thing.
M: Yeah.
L: Both of them were liberal arts schools, but formed by missionaries.Ira Verdell Lott 6
M: For black people.
L: For blacks. But the missionary – especially Tillotson, the missionaries were white from New England. The faculty at Sam Houston was mixed, as well as I can remember. And so I lived down...just down the street from Tillotson, and used L: to play over on their campus. My grade school was just across the street. And the...our family church was...that was Methodist Church, was kind of a part of Houston – Sam Houston...
M: Community.
L: Community. So that the center of life was as, when I think about it, was between those two colleges. And so that the professional and educated community came from...
M: You mentioned one time your mother dragging you off to hear everybody that came...[inaudible] what was some of...
L: Well, you see, the school, they would form...they had lectures and artists as part of the life of the school, so that the two schools, the presidents and those people - would arrange for speakers and artists to come from the East and they would present different lecturers and artists.
M: Who were some of the people you heard?
L: Oh, there were – you name them. Anyone. You see, in those days these would be anyone who was part of the, say, the Harlem Renaissance. You’d see W.B.DuBois, Marian Anderson, and then they would – at different auditoriums -Ira Verdell Lott 7
they would have Count Basie, you know, any...Langston Hughes would do readings. And they called those...now this was later – this would have been in the earlier days, you see. In the earlier days before I was...probably before I was born. I don’t know when those colleges were founded, but
you see, this would be where George Washington Carver would L: have came there and Booker T. Washington and people...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, of that stature. Educators would come from the other black – Negro colleges.
M: Uh-huh.
L: The network of Negro colleges.
M: Do you...who do you remember coming? People that you had experienced.
L: In my day?
M: Yeah, in your day.
L: We’re talking about, yeah, I can remember Marian Anderson, especially. Or...and I will never forget the Duke Ellington concert. Now when someone...and then, you see, you would have the University of Texas people. For someone like Duke Ellington the...that would be at...they would arrange to have that out at the University. And, well, I remember that. And one of my first...oh, and then when I was a kid there was a young girl – a prodigy – her name was Philipa Skylar. She was just a little girl, and she was a Ira Verdell Lott 8
concert – her father as I understand...and, see, they were from the Philadelphia society – a mixed marriage, as well as I can remember. Her mother was white; father was black. And they had this little girl who was a prodigy. And I remember Philipa Skylar. Her father, as well as I can remember, wrote for the Philadelphia Enquirer – one of the papers. So she would come...she came. Oh, and I remember a L: performance of what was called – it was a play, my first Broadway play – which was Carmen Jones, which was the play with black characters. And this was at the University too, with orchestra, and Carmen and...just that I’d never, ever seen anything like that. And so that it had come, you know, that it had been running on Broadway, so that whole show, you see, would come down. So I remember that. And well, as I said, Duke Ellington.
M: And how did you...was it your mother...was this your mother’s influence?
L: Well, it’s kind of hard to say. My mother...it was kind of both of them. You see, in the black community, in those days, the church and the school, they were the center of everything. And so you would have...they would have each year or different artistic things, which you weren’t able to go to, you know, in the other, you know, regular downtown and all that kind of thing. And so that as part of the church, you know, going to church - and this would be a Ira Verdell Lott 9
secular side - and so that depending on what the event was. It was always a Sunday afternoon at four o’clock, you know, unless it was, you know, another thing at the University where they had to have a bigger stage. So that...there was one singer I remember – Ann Miller – William Warfield, who is still singing. So that, you know, you sort of – and so the president of the college...I have to...this was much, much later from the founding days when my father and mother L: were meeting...
M: Uh-huh.
L: So there was the president of Sam Houston whose name was Downes, Carl Downes, and his wife, Marion, something, Downes, was a concert singer from Baltimore. She would have been from the Baltimore society...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...of black people. So her family had contacts and connections with the different artists, and he wrote a book called Meet the Negro - a small book. And in that book, which I would give anything to have it nowadays – it’s just a small book – but all of the people who were...who he had interviewed and who they knew as friends were...their lives were written about in that book. And then they would come on these different tours, called The Artists Series.
M: Um.
L: And he was Carl Downes, was a very impressive person.Ira Verdell Lott 10
M: What do you remember about going to school - high school and stuff in Austin?
L: Well, all of that, when I think about it, I...see, the teachers and all would have been...they had their degrees and all from Fisk, and some of them, you know, had gone to Northern schools. And so, the schools there in Austin were college preparatory, which was somewhat different.
M: Uh-huh.
L: Or even - one of the things that I learned – even the L: grade school teachers - you had a situation where the teachers, many of them who were from the North or from California, who couldn’t get into the public school system, could get positions in the schools – at least in Austin so that...
M: Now your school, high school, was it segregated?
L: Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. This was...we’re talking about...
M: And what years are we talking about?
L: We’re talking about – yeah, it would have been segregated until the ‘52s.
M: So when were you in high school?
L: I would have been in high school from ’48 until ’51, ’52.
M: Okay.
L: So that they were...all of the education was segregated. And until the...that world, you see, was a Ira Verdell Lott 11
closed...there was no official inter-action between...that I was aware of.
M: Could you go to the Ellington concert at the University of Texas?
L: Oh, yeah.
M: You could.
L: Well, we would go there. yes. See the college –
the Sam Houston, Dr. Downes and whoever was the president -they would make some kind of contract with whoever at the university, see. This was sponsored by the university, but L: they had the auditorium.
M: Uh-huh.
L: So that when Marian Anderson, or these people...and they needed a larger place. And then, that was always... and I’ve never been able to...and I think, as well as I can remember, that the audiences were segregated at the university. But it was always a bone of contracting, whether or not the performer would perform before a segregated audiences. Some would, some wouldn’t. And so that became a part of the negotiating, so that when you’d go to these things – go to these performances - there was...I always felt it was a kind of a tense feeling.
M: Uh-huh.
L: Because it was sort of...for the faculty of both schools to...right at the, you know, at the edge of breakingIra Verdell Lott 12
the law...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, whether or not they would do anything. Something else that I remember about going to the university and my high school: My English teacher, Mrs. Arnold, knew the drama instructor, or the English instructor, at the University of Texas. And, as well, I think his name was Dr. Payne. And he...every year the university would have Shakespearean performances, and Mrs. Arnold had an arrangement with him where we would go – the students from her class or maybe any others, too – I can remember walking L: out there, of going to the university to see the, not the performance, but we would see the dress rehearsals.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And we would...that would give the performers an opportunity to act, you know, before, you know, an audience. So we would see all of the Shakespearean plays, you know, that he put on. And then I remember one - I saw the Glass Menagerie. They would do any of the dramas; he would just call Mrs. Arnold and she would arrange, you know, for us to go.
M: Uh.
L: And we would either ride the bus...maybe we would ride the bus out there or walk. I can remember the walking part of it for some reason. Ira Verdell Lott 13
M: Well, were the buses segregated?
L: Of course. See, everything...see, we’re talking about a time when everything was segregated. Everything was segregated. And so, you know...but you have to, kind of thing. Like Dr. Payne, you see. He and Mrs. Arnold knew each other and as educators and artists and that type of thing, they had respect for each other. And they would just make these arrangements - so that you lived in this kind of dual world. So everything was segregated, I mean that was...
M: Yeah. Did you go to movies and things downtown then?
L: No. That was...well, that was...there was one theater
L: called the Ritz, which...there were two theaters – one called the Harlem, which was on the east side of town where I lived. in that part of town. And then there was the Ritz Theater, which was downtown. And we - naturally they were segregated. Well, the Harlem was not segregated because it was in the black community. But if you would go to the Ritz you always had to sit up...go up these little stairs to the side, and that type of thing. Now it’s on...again, it’s...the Ritz is now, it’s on 6th Street, this is another thing. When I was growing up, 6th Street was the...not... what would you call it?
M: Red light district?
L: Red light district, thank you very much. It would have Ira Verdell Lott 14
been, well, you didn’t – but it was right down the street from the Driscoll Hotel. It was kind of subtlety, you know what I mean.
M: Seedy?
L: Kind...yes, you know there were beer joints and all this kind of thing, but you could...they had this theater, you know, and you would go and then you would walk... And this is one of the funny things, when I go back to Austin, that 6th Street is now gentrified. It’s very posh as far as, you know, the change.
M: Yeah.
L: It’s an interesting – as far as city planning and growth, it’s an interesting thing, because, for a period of L: time along East – 6th Street – you had the black merchants. There was a period of time, when Austin was smaller, they were black. It wasn’t a red light district. As a matter of fact, my father had an office there some years ago, a real estate office. This is before he went into the lumber business. And so you would have a dentist, a black dentist, black grocery stores, haberdasheries, barbers, beauticians. The whole thing was on 6th Street. And somehow or other the Ritz Theater was in there. I don’t know exactly how that...or the change so that by...there was, there seemed to have been a point in time, in the evolution of Jim Crow...Ira Verdell Lott 15
M: Uh-huh.
L: When the black businesses were subtlety or not so subtlety moved east to...
M: Okay.
L: ...to East Avenue. So that, after a certain period of time, if you look at the maps, you know, of Austin, that street between Congress Avenue and East Avenue in Austin was the colored section.
M: Yeah.
L: And then as time went on, the commercial enterprises of blacks moved further...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...further east. And then downtown and 6th Street was no longer black.
M: Uh-huh.
L: As far as Austin, and that kind of move for anyone who knows Austin, if you go to the public library, where the public library is now, as I understand it, that area in there also had black or coloreds or Negroes.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And then the city fathers in the ‘30s, after the ‘20s, or the ‘30s, and this is a matter of record, you can look at the – I looked at some of these at the Barker – the minutes of the meetings of the...
M: City council?Ira Verdell Lott 16
L: City council minutes, thank you, where a decision was made that the public services, which had been in those areas, would be diminished or decreased so that if you were black it just sort of served your interest, you see, to move over to the East Side. And then that property, in those days...today we would call it urban renewal.
M: Yeah.
L: Or in South Africa you would call it apartheid. You know, just simply moving, but it was much more subtle than that, and it became...you know. As a matter of fact, not in that area, but even, say, my church, Wesley Methodist Church, where it’s located now on San Bernard Street, originally was in what is downtown Austin.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But...and a number of other colored churches were in
L: what is considered, now, downtown Austin. But at a certain point in time it seems that the trustees and people were made an offer, which they could not refuse, kind of, to buy some land over...
M: Gotcha.
L: ...[inaudible].
M: Yeah, yeah, okay.
L: I’m not trying to...that all of sudden, so that if you go there now you don’t find any Negroes.
M: Okay. Ira Verdell Lott 17
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1.
SIDE 2.
M: This is side 2 of tape 1. I’m talking with Ira Verdell Lott. This is Sarah Massey. Ira, what, once you graduated from high school, what happened? What did you do then?
L: Well, I went to college in Virginia.
M: Okay.
L: I went to Hampton.
M: Now what made your folks send you clear back East to school?
L: Well, originally my father had...my father...it was kind of decided, you know – I would go to Tuskegee.
M: Okay.
L: His school. But it was kind of decided, looking back on it, it was... I decided that I would be going to study architecture, and there was an architect, John Chase, who
L: was working in my father’s office, or in the lumberyard, in the real estate and he had gone to Hampton.
M: Um.
L: And...
M: Did all of your brothers and sisters go to school?
L: Yes.
M: So your whole family went to college?
L: Went to college, yeah. There was never any...that was an...as well as I can remember, there was never any questionIra Verdell Lott 18
if we could. And looking back on it now, you know, we could afford it. I mean, it was sort of like, there was no question that you would go. Well, no, the one brother, Harry, did not go to school. He was my second to the oldest. There was Oral, who was the oldest brother, then there was Harry...
M: Uh-huh.
L: The second brother. He wasn’t as academically inclined. What we discovered – it was so unusual that he didn’t go - but it wasn’t until the second world war that they learned that he had a hearing problem. In those days nothing was ever done about it. And so he didn’t go to... but in the family and in town – it was sort of like one of the characters in the family, he was always the most popular, you know, among the girls and the socialite, you know, kind of person. But he never...he didn’t go to college. All the rest of us did. My brother Virgil was a L: lawyer, my sister studied business at...economics or something at Houston-Tillotson. Then my youngest brother was...did computer – he was the later generation; he went into computer or something sort of like that. I want to back up; can we back up?
M: Sure.
L: We were talking about when...after I was invited to do this tape, something came to my mind about an incident that Ira Verdell Lott 19
happened when I was in high school. And I don’t know how this fits in with this tape, but maybe anybody who is listening to this can make of it whatever they want to, in terms of the segregation and the relationship between the races. Mrs. Arnold, who was my English teacher, and it would have been the 10th or the 11th grade, I don’t know. But...and I mentioned her before, you know, very interested and she had different contacts, but there seemed...there was a young lady who was, a white lady, who...a student who was doing a project, and her project in some kind of way was to go to the white school, which was Austin High, and have the young, the students in the class - these were high school students - to have them talk about their knowledge and what they thought of Negroes. And then to take the tape recorder to us and have us talk about what we thought about white people. And she was very nice, and Mrs. Arnold explained this to us and this type thing. And we, you know, we talked, you know, of our experiences of...
M: Uh-huh.
L: Of white people.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And of the incidents, you know, that we had. And vice versa – you get the picture.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And then...so she came back and played that tape. And Ira Verdell Lott 20
as she began to play the tape, we begin to hear the white people referring to us as niggers, and it seemed to us, you know, that it was more demeaning and disrespectful than we had been towards them. And so, all of a sudden the kids in the class...some girl said, “Did you hear what they said?” You know, they began, “Mrs. Arnold, did you hear what they called us?” You know, like that. And it was just a big, you know about a...just a big kind of explosion. And Mrs. Arnold and the young lady, she was kind of embarrassed and everything...
M: Yeah.
L: And so she said, “Why don’t we just turn the...”
M: ...Tape off.
L: Turn the tape off. And didn’t, and when I think back to it, didn’t use that opportunity to talk with us.
M: I was going to say, did you not talk about it then after...?
L: We didn’t talk about it. Now today I think we would have talked about it.
M: Yeah.
L: But we didn’t. I cannot remember us...
M: Discussing it.
L: Discussing it. Today we would have, you know, but that came, you know, to my mind.
M: Yeah. This would have been 1950 if you were in the Ira Verdell Lott 21
10th grade, about 1950.
L: This would have been in 1950. And I don’t know whether we had said anything, but it seemed to us...
M: Yeah.
L: You know we hadn’t ever heard...
M: Yeah.
L: You know, and it was just being...
M: Well, did you have any experience of violence? Or...?
L: No. See, in those days and times there was not...I was even thinking about, you know, in high school or grade school, there was a relationship and the classes were smaller and the community was smaller. There was such a relationship between the...my...your family and the teachers, that if something went wrong, before you got home, you know...
M: They knew about it.
L: You knew that you were going to have to deal with this that took place, it was just a close...that was a different time altogether. Violence wasn’t anything you even...
M: Uh-huh.
L: That you even thought about.
M: Well, you must have. When you went...what did your mother think going back East to school? Here is her youngest son, almost, leaving home.
L: No. Ira Verdell Lott 22
M: She have any words of wisdom for you?
L: Well, I was next to the youngest.
M: Yeah.
L: Next to the youngest. No. My father had died. My father died the summer that I was to go to Hampton. And I was able to...he was sick in the hospital, and the application...I was at least able to tell him that I was going to...
M: Uh-huh.
L: That I had been accepted to go to Hampton. And...
M: Were those good years for you? What did you study there?
L: I studied architecture there.
M: Okay.
L: A funny thing happened; it doesn’t have anything, you know...one of the things that we laugh about in my family in terms of...of course, well, this...there were two different things, if you, in those days - this was in ‘50s... Transportation was...
M: Yeah.
L: ...still segregated. So you had to travel, in order to avoid the South you...we would take the Missouri-Pacific up to...
M: Railroad?
L: Railroad, Missouri-Pacific Railroad, yeah. Up to Ira Verdell Lott 23
Cincinnati, and take the Baltimore and Ohio and go straight across and you would avoid...so that the Negro or colored children, young people from Houston, one train would begin in Houston and the two trains would join together. It was either in Temple, Texas, or Palestine, somewhere up the road, and so the...and then the partying – that’s what I remember. Everybody hadn’t seen each other. But in terms of going away to school, this is a big, huge...
M: Well, did you party on the train then? Is this a big deal?
L: Oh, this is...well, you know people – you know, laughing, seeing friends and everybody. I can remember people playing cards, and there was no such thing as marijuana in those days, but people would be smoking. I can remember the smoke. I didn’t smoke before I went to college; I started smoking after I was at college. It was so funny – I had told my girlfriend, you know, goodbye. My girlfriend was going to Oberlin, Ohio - she was studying music. And I think that she was still...she was going out there with two or three, maybe about three or four different girls who were, you know, that we had dated and all that kind of thing. But at any rate, I had made all of my
L: goodbyes, and this was the farewell, you know, to...and my mother and my sister and all of my family, you know, and everybody was at the station. The train comes in, this Ira Verdell Lott 24
streamline train from San Antonio, you know, to start on this journey, my first trip. You know, the luggage was all on the train, and I was saying goodbye, and when I got on the platform, my mother says, “Now, where is your ticket?” And I was dressed up. You know in those days, you know, you’d have a tie and, you know, all dressed up. And I stuck my hand in the...and I didn’t have my ticket. And she said, “Fool, how am I going to – here you’re going away, where is the ticket?” I said, “I left it, it’s on the dining room table.” And so she got on the phone and called the lumber company, and my brother, you know, the train was, “All aboard.” You know, to get... All of my girlfriends – I was so embarrassed. I will never, ever forget that. And the train, you know, pulled off, you know, and my...just gone. Here I was stranded and had to go home. I was so, and so they always – so to this day, to this day, if I am going to make any kind of trip, the night before, a ticket... I make sure that my ticket is in, you know, whatever is my immediate, my immediate kind of things. But I went home that night and I was so ashamed and just everything. All I could do, I just went to a movie, I think. And I’ll never forget the movie that I went to see – Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Cliff in – what was the one?
M: American Tragedy?
L: Yes. Well, you know, that one. I never will forget Ira Verdell Lott 25
the American Tragedy. I’ll never forget it. And I was just by myself. And so the next day...
M: Yeah. And were you sitting in the balcony?
L: Uh? No, this was at the Harlem.
M: Oh, okay.
L: No. Not then. But, any rate, so the next day when it was time to go, I was just all by myself - the girl, my friends – my mother went down and my sister, you know, but it was not the party.
M: That it would have been.
L: But that was a huge...
M: Well, what was the deal about going through Ohio, and taking a train – not through the South? I don’t understand that.
L: Danger. It was, yeah, the travel. You see, you had about two days of travel on the train, and then the accommodations, you know, on the train and...
M: Did you have a sleeper or did you stay up all night?
L: We would stay up, you know, all the kids, you know, all the kids, but we were safe. For some reason or other you did not travel in those days, and I guess the trains weren’t as nice, but if you could avoid Mississippi, Alabama, that would have meant going on the train through Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia and that, so that you just didn’t do
L: that if you could afford it.Ira Verdell Lott 26
M: Yeah. And did you...how did you find schools back East compared to your...what you’d experienced in Texas?
L: Uh, it was college. I don’t know. I think looking back on it, probably the students there were better prepared, even with the quality kind of education that we got. Looking back on it, I think...
M: Yeah, because you had a really rare education, I think.
L: It was...[inaudible]. I don’t know why I said that they were different, you know. Maybe they were. You see, they would have had – and looking back, now, this is only... their teachers and all would have been in school systems of Virginia, particularly Virginia, and coming from the East... M: Uh-huh.
L: And they were, I don’t know, maybe...
M: ...[inaudible].
L: A mystique; I don’t know. But I loved Hampton. When I was at Hampton and when I think about it, when I think of Hampton, that would be when I – the first tree; I had never seen trees. But the campus was just absolutely beautiful. And the history, you know, of that school and, again, the... at Hampton it would have been called something else. On Sunday evening, what...the history of Hampton, the founder of it was white, something...a kind of military kind of person and it still had that...
M: Un-huh. Military feel. Ira Verdell Lott 27
L: Well, you didn’t have to march and all that business.
M: Yeah.
L: But still there were things about it that – like you were expected to be in chapel, you know, on Sunday mornings, dressed, in a certain place. And there would be preachers of renown in the black community. In the evening, oh, you dressed, you know - tie and everything else, for Sunday at lunch time. And then at night, there again there would be speakers or artists, you know; these performances, very similar, you know...
M: Uh-huh.
L: To what...
M: You’d experienced here.
L: What we had experienced there. And the...one of the things, too, that I’ve... I remember from the history, that many of the students at Hampton would come there - the teachers, the curriculum was... They knew that many of the students had been accepted without having had the foundation for college preparation.
M: Um.
L: So there was a core...there was a curriculum...
M: Uh-huh.
L: Which appreciated that...
M: Um.
L: ...that group, you know, of students. And so that there Ira Verdell Lott 28
were classes, you know, for them.
M: Uh-huh.
L: It was looked at at face value; I mean, it wasn’t, you know, just...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know what I mean?
M: Yeah.
L: I don’t know what I mean.
M: Yes. It was remediation work...
L: Yes. Now, look...
M: Yeah.
L: This is what we’re dealing with.
M: Yeah.
L: The fact of the matter is, you’ve got to catch up on this.
M: Yeah, yeah.
L: You know. So that’s...
M: It wasn’t denied; it wasn’t shoved under the carpet.
L: It wasn’t denied; it was in the curriculum.
M: Yeah.
L: It wasn’t looked...I don’t think that it was looked at as denigrating. You know.
M: Yeah.
L: Something else that I’ve realized, just in recent years, that Hampton – again I don’t know what the religious Ira Verdell Lott 29
thing about it - but the majority of my teachers, it was a mixed faculty in early years. The faculty members had been L: missionaries from New England, you know. They’d come down.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But the majority of my instructors when I was there were Jewish immigrants. I just learned that within the last few months - that these would have been professors who are Jewish people who had either left...
M: As a result of World War II?
L: Not after it – well, yes, after it or even before it.
M: Yeah.
L: Who couldn’t, I don’t think, get on faculties at white universities. But they...
M: Uh-huh.
L: And I read this, that it was not only at Hampton but that the Jewish...
M: Uh-huh.
L: These people, they were able to get...
M: ...on at black colleges?.
L: Black colleges, throughout the South.
M: Um.
L: That when I think back to it, they were Jewish immigrants. And in reading about them, that they were kind of caught in between, because they had come out of a Ira Verdell Lott 30
segregated kind of thing...
M: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
L: But they were in the South and they weren’t really
L: accepted in the...you know...
M: Uh-huh.
L: In the white...
M: ...community.
L: Community. They were in-between. It’s an interesting...
M: Marginal people.
L: Marginal. Yeah. And so, I don’t know, so...
M: Did you graduate from Hampton then?
L: No. I...the main thing, when I was at Hampton was when the Brown and...the desegregation, the Brown...
M: Yeah. I don’t remember. I can’t...
L: Versus schools and all that.
M: Yeah.
L: So I...then I transferred to the University of Texas. That’s when I...when I was at Hampton.
M: Uh-huh.
L: In fact, I was very happy there and everything. But that was when I became Roman Catholic, which in turn, you know, in my life...
M: Okay.
L: That my formal religion, you know, is basically United Ira Verdell Lott 31
Methodist. But when I was at Hampton I began to read, you know, about religion. And I found... And many times people say, “Why did, you become Catholic?” and all that? I began to read of history, about religion. And I attended some of L: the Methodist Churches, but the atmosphere, the way that the sermons...the way the things were carried out wasn’t what I had known. It was a different...
M: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
L: Different. And that began to put some questions in my mind.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, if...about the...why is it so different?
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know. And I began to...and I had a roommate who was, who had been taking instructions in the Catholic Church, and he had a catechism book there – and I began to read his, you know, his catechism book. And probably, looking back on it, but just intellectually, I was searching for something.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, whether it was religion or not.
M: Uh-huh.
L: I don’t know, looking back on it, I...and I’ve often wondered, you know, whether or not I would have become a Communist. I was reading social history and that type Ira Verdell Lott 32
thing, but the whole movement, you know, of Communism. It was...but that never came up.
M: ...[inaudible] black list – House Un-American ... [inaudible]...1951...[inaudible].
L: That’s what I mean.
M: Yeah. ...[inaudible].
L: But I was reading. There was some book, I can’t remember, I began to read – certainly about socialism, and the notion of helping people, and the unity...
M: Uh-huh.
L: The unity of people intrigued me. And that was very fascinating to me. So that, the whole McCarthy thing...
M: Uh-huh.
L: That was a white people’s thing.
M: Yeah.
L: That was all right. You know what I mean? It was a white... And, as a matter of fact, while I...it was a white thing, and when we were... I remember being in one of the classrooms once, when the McCarthy hearings...
M: Yeah.
L: And to this day I can remember that last one when the General Counsel said, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” You know what I mean? That was...
M: Yeah.
L: But it was clearly – it was a white people thing. I Ira Verdell Lott 33
really didn’t understand what all that was about.
M: Was about.
L: I didn’t, you know, comparing what that was all about in terms of what I was reading...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, about socialism.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, particularly socialism, that that...and the whole unity of people and all that thing, and for some reason or another it took a path into...
M: The church.
L: The church.
M: Well, when you...
L: And I...
M: When you came back, then, your first experience of an integrated setting would have been at the University of Texas then?
L: Yes. Uh-huh.
M: So that you were at Hampton for two years and then you came back to the University of Texas. And did you enter the church at that time?
L: No. I became Catholic when I was in Virginia.
M: Okay.
L: I became Catholic.
M: Then you came back to Austin to school. Ira Verdell Lott 34
L: To the university.
M: And what did you major in there?
L: In architecture.
M: You continued in architecture there, and then you graduated in architecture?
L: In there, from there. But I was not as happy. That’s another thing. Social life! This is while I was there, and L: when I look back on to it, and I have not in my own head, you know, resolved it. But even while I was there, I used to always say if I had a daughter I would not let her go there. Because there was, you know, that there was more to going to school and getting an education than just going to class. And that’s all that I was able to do.
M: So there was no social life for you?
L: Not really. No. No, not really. But I did...I got to know some students from Tillotson or Sam Houston, but we really didn’t have anything in common.
M: Well, you’ve got to be one of the first black students at the University of Texas.
L: Yeah. My thing was an accident. It was...how did I get? And that’s...
M: Yeah.
L: I think it was an accident. It was a legal – both legal cases were still going on. The graduates – the law school had been open and they were fighting, fighting, Ira Verdell Lott 35
fighting for undergraduates.
M: Uh-huh.
L: To get undergraduate students.
M: Yeah.
L: And the legislature and the courts and everything were using all kinds of arguments and saying that if there was an undergraduate school provided, you know – separate, but equal – they did not have the responsibility to accept...
M: Accept those students.
L: Accept the undergraduate students. So they went into court, and this type of thing, and they...finally something happened in court, the ruling, where they had to accept, you know, students if they didn’t have the departments. Well, they didn’t have, as well as I can remember, an architecture school.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And the...they didn’t have the architecture school. Oh, then the Regent, or someone, said, “But we will not accept”. They didn’t have to accept students right out of high school – some way or another that way.
M: Okay.
L: That...and so my brother, Virgil, who’d graduated by that time from the law school...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...said, “Why don’t you apply to the University of Ira Verdell Lott 36
Texas?” And at that time the tuition - I like to tell this - the tuition was twenty-five dollars for a state resident. Whereas the tuition, I think, at Hampton was something like, in those days, eight or a thousand dollars, you see, and then we have transportation and all of that.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so, you know, I said, “Well, what am I going...” You know in those days you didn’t resist...
M: Yeah.
L: Not the way you would have. And then, too, I had to see that the architecture, in terms of the department and all of that being recognized, you know.
M: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
L: I think recognized much more than Hampton.
M: Uh-huh.
L: Probably in terms of accreditation and all of that.
M: Yeah.
L: And when I...
M: Keep going.
L: I just...I didn’t realize, you know, when I started there...
M: Uh-huh.
L: I didn’t realize that some of the stress and the tension of being at a large university...
M: Oh, it would have been much larger too.Ira Verdell Lott 37
L: Oh, it was a huge...
M: Yeah, compared to the size...
L: It was nothing like in a small college.
M: And you had no social life at all.
L: No social life, none, none, none, none, none.
M: Yeah.
L: None. It was just...
M: And how did your parents feel about the religious change?
L: Uh, the only brother that I hurt, my mother – that’s
L: important. As a Methodist, my group of Methodists, we had always been taught that at a certain point in your life ...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You had to make a choice, you know. Now looking back on it, that was never the idea of choosing not to have anything. You know. It was you made a choice between...
M: X or Y.
L: X or Y.
M: Yeah.
L: It was kind of funny.
M: I remember that.
L: Yeah, there was no idea of, but... So when I made that choice...that was no...what I do know, that the spirituality that we were taught, of tolerance – that was one of the Ira Verdell Lott 38
things in terms of the Methodists, you know, of just tolerant of different people, you know - different religions, that’s what I always remember. And that you had to make a choice. The only person who, my mother told me, raised kind of something, but never to me, was my brother the lawyer.
M: Uh-huh. Virgil.
L: Virgil. On the other hand, he was the one, when I went into the seminary, who, you know, drove me, took me to the seminary and would come to visit with me and, you know, it was a kind of mixed kind of thing.
M: Let’s end...
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2.THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: Segregation in Austin and the Priesthood INTERVIEW WITH: Ira Verdell Lott (Tape 2 of 2)
DATE: 17 May 2001
PLACE: 210 King William, S.A., TX
INTERVIEWER: Sarah Massey
TAPE 2, SIDE 1
M: Okay, this is tape 2, side 1, and I’m Sarah Massey, talking with Ira Verdell Lott. And he has just graduated from college, at the University of Texas, in Architect school, and we’ll continue from there.
L: Um. Well...
M: Yeah.
L: Well, it wasn’t that, you see, when you say that he has just graduated. If it had only been that...
M: Easy.
L: ...been that easy. You know. That, that...
M: What did you do after graduation?
L: Well, that was the... I went to work for – oh, two years maybe three years – with a firm...maybe two years. Well, I would do drawings, you know, work with my family. My brother – my father had died...
M: Okay.
L: My brothers were still running the lumber company, and real estate and that type of thing. John Chase, who was theIra Verdell Lott 2
architect, had moved on to Houston. So I would do drawings, L: you know, for them. And then more and more, more and more I was with an architect’s firm, Frank DeGroot. And...
M: Spell that.
L: DeGroot. It’s - Frank was his first name, D-e- capital D-e – capital G-r-o-o-t. Frank DeGroot.
M: Okay.
L: And I was with him and, you know, and just living a life.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But to back up just one bit.
M: Okay.
L: I had become Roman Catholic...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...when I left Hampton.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And during the time that I was at the university, when I became Roman Catholic, the priest who gave us instructions told us, you know, that becoming a Roman Catholic, you know, is an easy kind of thing. But you will have to continue reading, if you want to know more about Roman Catholicism – not only practicing it but reading more about it. It’s history and that type thing. And so I took that very, very seriously. So I was doing architecture. But as far as stabilizing the thing for me, it was the going to church.Ira Verdell Lott 3
M: Church.
L: And that was a kind of a...well, I get a kick out of
L: this part, too, because when you would...when you... I lived at home and then in order to get a parking place on Guadalupe Street, on the drag, or any place near the architecture department, you had to go very early to get a parking place. Well, when you’d come early, you couldn’t get into the buildings. You know, they hadn’t been opened. So the only thing to do, for me, that I thought, well, St. Austin’s Church was right there, so I just became a daily participant, communicant – you know going to...
M: ...to church.
L: To church. So when I think about it, you know, my Catholicism is based upon getting a parking space.
M: Getting a parking space. I love it, I love it, I love it.
L: Well wasn’t that practical? But I took it very, very seriously at that time. I took it...but that is what you’d do: you’d just go get a parking place and go to church. And so I would always do that.
M: Why did you become an Oblate Father? So I could get a parking space.
L: Parking space.
M: So, well, I would get the parking space in front of the church, go to church and... But as I really, you know, was Ira Verdell Lott 4
reading more and more, you know, about the church and became more and more involved, began to think that I was happier doing that...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, which was the reading and participating and all that, than I was in the architecture thing.
M: Uh-huh.
L: So I began to think about...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...the priesthood. You know. But it was in the middle of this architecture, you know.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so when I... Even then, I thought about it and spoke to a priest, and that particular priest who I talked to, you know. He said, “Well, continue your reading.” He didn’t seem, you know, that, you know...
M: ...Excited about it.
L: Didn’t follow up on it. And I said, “Well, maybe it’s not, you know, that important.”
M: Yeah.
L: And so that even academically, you know, you were just right in the middle of the architecture thing...
M: Uh-huh.
L: It was a feeling of being out in the middle of something and turning around and going back.Ira Verdell Lott 5
M: Well, were you dating anybody at this time? Did you have any girl friends?
L: Off and on. Yes, when I had the time. I was studying so hard.
M: Uh-huh.
L: I think the girl who I had being seeing, and who had gone to Hampton, we had kind of drifted apart. And then there were about two others girls who I dated...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...during that time. And...but I was...that dealing with architecture really didn’t leave time for just...
M: Yeah.
L: ...really getting involved in it. But yeah, I did for a while and then not...not up...and then even kind of just a little bit after, yeah, after, well, after I had approached the priest, you know, about going, and was really thinking about it, then I would cut off the dating and everything. And by the time I did finish, you know, I wasn’t really thinking – finished architecture – I wasn’t thinking of, you know, about the priesthood anymore.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know. And then I would...I picked up for that period of time when I was working. And so life was just...
M: Well, then, what made the final decision for you to join the priesthood?Ira Verdell Lott 6
L: I wasn’t happy doing what I was doing. It was just that simple. I was just going...you know, you’d get up and you’d go to work and you’d... The other thing that, when I think back to it, the getting through the architecture...
M: This is the degree, the last two years at Texas.
L: That thing, it was like it didn’t mean anything; it was like a burnout. It was sort of like...
M: You were so alienated from everybody.
L: I guess; I don’t know. But it didn’t...I wasn’t...it just didn’t mean anything. It was...so you would work...
M: Yeah.
L: ...get your check, you’d go back and then, socially, now that you mention it, in terms of alienated. I really wasn’t into anything.
M: Yeah.
L: But I just wasn’t happy. And I was only...I guess I was twenty, twenty-four, maybe twenty-five when I graduated.
M: From the...
L: Yeah, from the...from architecture, from the university. And...but I just wasn’t happy. And...
M: Okay, so then when you decided to do the priesthood, what happened then?
L: Well, the priest who I...I had a cousin, my cousin...[ name?], who had become Roman Catholic, and I was talking with her and she said, “I know a priest down at this other Ira Verdell Lott 7
church. Why don’t you go and talk with him?” And I went and talked to this priest who was with the Oblates. I didn’t know anything about the Oblates. I didn’t know the difference between order – you know what was the mission, or what – you and I have talked about a secular priest and an order priest...
M: Uh-huh.
L: And if it had been a secular priest I would have gone there. But he followed up,...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...you know. And, you know, with, you know, talking with me. Made an appointment here to see someone in San Antonio. And...
M: So then did you go...what does it involve, becoming a priest? Do you go back to school?
L: ...for some parts of it. Now, like, there was a period when I came here...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...into San Antonio. And then for a year of kind of transition, living – living the life – and I was taking classes of...started taking my Spanish and then some theology, other classes at St. Mary’s.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But living, you know...
M: ...with the Oblate Fathers.Ira Verdell Lott 8
L: With the, yeah, with a...with a group of other guys who were coming.
M: Uh-huh.
L: What we would call delayed vocations.
M: Uh-huh.
L: That meant these were men who...well, like...
M: ...were older.
L: Older.
M: Yeah.
L: And they hadn’t gone through their high school and all of that. The...there were those of us, and we were taking classes and living that kind of life.
M: And were there any blacks with you at this point?
L: No, no.
M: You were the only one?
L: That was another thing, yeah, that’s...and that, I brought that up to the person who I talked with, and he told me something which kind of fit in. I said, did he think that my being a black would present a problem? And he said, “Ira, it will be a problem for you if you make it one.” And I took that very seriously. I didn’t give it another... well, you know, as time went on, I...that really didn’t have ...and until, you see, like, it was funny but when I became Catholic, when I became Roman Catholic, I was perfectly aware of the racism within the Catholic Church.Ira Verdell Lott 9
M: Catholic Church.
L: It didn’t make any difference to me. It didn’t make any difference to me. It was completely...it was an intellectual, you know, understanding of history and all that kind of thing.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so that didn’t make any difference. I don’t know
what I would have done if he had said that it might; he
L: wouldn’t have even talked to me, I think, when I asked him.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, Father Blackburn. And he said it will become a problem for you if you make it one.
M: And then, so how long...how long before you took your vows?
L: Oh, that would have been...and because I was a convert, we decided to just go the whole thing. That would have been seven years.
M: Seven years.
L: Four – three years, well, one...no wait, yeah, we had what we call a novitiate, when we went down to Mission, Texas.
M: Yeah.
L: ...[inaudible] a year of prayer and all.
M: Yeah.Ira Verdell Lott 10
L: And then you do three years of philosophy, and then the four years of...well, three of heavy theology, of theology for three years. And then there’s a year of pastoral, you
know,
M: Yeah.
L: ...where you take – very different today. That was what I did.
M: Yeah.
L: Some people...see, if I had been Catholic, you know,
L: born Catholic, and had had...been in Catholic schools, right along...
M: Yeah.
L: ...I might not have had to do that; I don’t know.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But we just worked that up, and it wasn’t...and in those days...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...different from today...the...and it, yeah, I think it might be different; I haven’t lived in the seminary setting, but you had a...had a closed community.
M: Uh-huh.
L: It was a world set apart.
M: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
L: So it was...the time just kind of went by, you know. You went to class and...Ira Verdell Lott 11
M: Yeah.
L: ...and you just lived that life. And it didn’t seem that long for me.
M: I seem to remember you talking about your mother trying to find a place to stay.
L: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a huge thing at the very beginning.
M: That would have been in the ‘60s, too, wouldn’t it?
L: Uh, ’61.
M: Yeah.
L: Down in...I didn’t know I had mentioned that to you. That was...I was in what we call the novitiate in Mission, Texas. That was a year of prayer and reflection and kind of a boot camp in those days. It’s not like that today - much more humane, I think. In those days, it was just a terrible ...[inaudible]. But at the end, you know, normally, the... well, always the parents would come...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...you know, to hear you make your first vows. And I hadn’t given it a thought, you know – this was in Mission...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...you know, right in...I don’t know why I didn’t, and then one night at the dinner table, the priest in charge called me to the table - he wasn’t the head person; the head person was from Chicago and he was away. But this French Ira Verdell Lott 12
priest who was in charge called me, “Brother, come over... come to, come here.” And he says, “Where do your people plan to live when they come here?” And I said, “Well, whenever we come this far we always live...go into Mexico.
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...and just stay on other side of the border. And so he was an old French priest, one of the early, “Well, it’s okay, okay; we will see.” And then when Father Master came, this other priest told him. And then I was called in and asked, “What did I mean that...what did it mean that my people would stay? They would stay on this side you know with, you know, wherever.” And I said, “Well, Father, you know what I mean.” He was complete oblivious; I mean, this ...
M: Uh-huh.
L: It’s an interesting kind of thing.
M: Yeah.
L: ...because he was from Chicago, had spent all of his life, you know, in the seminary and everything, but was totally, completely oblivious to segregation law, and that...that would have...and would have presented a problem. And so I said...he said, “They will stay on this side of the border. They will stay right here in McAllen, you know.” And so I...and so, he said you write and tell them that they will stay on this side of the border.” So I wrote the Ira Verdell Lott 13
letter, and in those days you didn’t seal the letter in case the Master wanted to look at it. So he opened it...he looked in it and saw where I...I wrote, I said, “Dear Mama, They, you know, I am to write to tell you that you’re to stay on this side of the border.” But, I forget, I said, “I wouldn’t plan on that. I would still plan on staying...” And so when he read that, he hit the...
M: ...Roof.
L: “Oh, Brother,” he yelled down the...”Come here immediately.” And so, “What do you mean telling your mother to check with your brother...” You know, Virgil, who had taken me down there where he had stayed. And so, “You tell
L: her that they will...” And so, you know, and so I wrote it. The next morning, he got into the car – let me see, it was...he was going to town to all of his friends... “You will stay...I have friends...,”
M: Yeah.
L: “...in McAllen and here, and you will find the...you know, Brother.” And so the Brothers, they always said, “Brother Ira, we don’t know what’s going to happen, you know, said...” And I said, “Well, he is in for a big learning; it is against the law...”
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...for whites and blacks...” That wasn’t, you know, what of it. So they said, “But he’s got friends.” I said, Ira Verdell Lott 14
“Well, he’s going to find out, you know.” I said, “You wait.” And so, sure enough, on this hot day, the car was coming across the prairie - you could see the dust - and he came in and began to ring the...
M: ...the bell.
L: ...the bell, you know, the community call, everybody to, you know, in...that he had been in to town and that everyone was to write to their parents and tell them that if they had made arrangements to stay, you know, in any of these, you know, these establishments, that they were to cancel their...
M: ...and go across the border.
L: And...I didn’t know that he was going to find, you
L: know, that he was going to his social friends; he had gone to the public places and then he went to these people that he’d had dinner with, and everybody, and they told him, “Father, there’s just no way, you know, that we can, you know, let black people come into our home. You know that...”
M: Yeah.
L: And these were his friends. He was crushed, crushed, crushed. But he was determined, you know, that he would find a place. And so I...on the day of the ceremony, you know, for making our vows, you know I...there was my mother and my sister and my brother and it was a hot summer day. Ira Verdell Lott 15
And I didn’t know, you know, what had happened, what had happened. And so, when I saw my mother I said, “Where, you know, where are you all staying? Where’s everybody staying? And he had called them – the Father Master had gotten in touch with them, and told them to meet him, you know, at a certain intersection. You know, all of the people who would come and whatever time they would get there, to call and that he had made arrangements at the...at our...there was a Mission...at the Mission San Juan – for all of the parents, you know, to... So, you know, my mother, they...my mother fell in love with him, you know, and my sister thought Father Matthew, but he was so gracious. And then my mother had never been to a retreat house.
M: Yeah.
L: Or that type thing. And she went into the Mission - to the church, you know, with the candles.
M: Yeah.
L: And it was nice and peaceful and quiet, and she just enjoyed – it was just a wonderful, wonderful thing for her. And the people – and by it being a Mission type thing – when they got ready to leave, they were there a day or two days, they would come over for the ceremonies that we had. And then when they got ready to leave, they were asking, you know, what is the bill? You know. And they said, “Oh well, you don’t...Father Matthew, you know, he’s taking care, you Ira Verdell Lott 16
know, of everything.” So it was just, you know, one of those important kind of days – very tension filled.
M: Well, did you find, during those years, any other blacks at all in the priesthood?
L: No. No. That’s a...no, and how did I... so that while I was in the seminary, again, whether I was at the university, or when I was in the seminary, I did form some close friends - maybe three or four people...
M: Okay.
L: ...that we would kind of hang together. The other Brothers...
M: No?
L: There was, no, they had other interests.
M: Yeah.
L: And I never...I never had any open animosity to me.
L: Somebody asked me that - one of the priests. And I hadn’t been ordained. And he asked me about it: did I find that they were more enlightened than the other?
M: Um.
L: And just from conversation, and whatever, I...it was... was no huge threat to them.
M: Yeah.
L: ...you know, I was by myself - that was how I would put it together.
M: Yeah, okay, okay.Ira Verdell Lott 17
L: If I had been Mexican-American, you see, there were... where, there were...
M: Large numbers.
L: Large numbers, then, perhaps, I would have been a threat.
M: Yeah.
L: I was surprised, and when I think about...with regard...when I went to the seminary, these would have been before the Roman Catholic – before Vatican II.
M: Yeah.
L: Vatican II was announced in 1961. That was when I was in...at the novitiate; that’s a huge a change.
M: Um.
L: But I was very surprised, let me see, that the majority of the students, and even the faculty, were totally ignorant, as far as social awareness. So that their
L: world...
M: ...was totally different.
L: Was totally, totally different.
M: Yeah.
L: Now that having been said, it was a funny kind of thing. Like one of the rectors, Father Kipas, you know, brilliant theologian and everything, and he would, when all the civil rights thing was going on, you know, he would, “Brother, come, you know, what am I supposed to think about Ira Verdell Lott 18
this?” You know – as far as the social justice...
M: Yeah, the social justice issues.
L: The social issue.
M: Yeah.
L: Where...and so when Archbishop Lucey, here, you see – I think it was here – he integrated the schools, just like that. All Catholic schools will be integrated, you see. Well, this was just completely different from anything that the Fathers had known, you know.
M: Yeah.
L: But Father Kipas, when it was time for voting or there was something, he would say, “Father Lott, come here; tell me, what am I supposed to...?” And then, we’d...and then I would tell him that. The other thing that I like to...there was one – a professor, Father Decker, who – he was the only one who kind of made an effort, you know, in his class to relate the theology to social issues. He was the only one L: who made a serious effort to talk about human sexuality, you know. He would talk about that. He was the only one who would. Somewhere or other he got free tickets to the San Antonio Symphony, you know, and all the Brothers who wanted to go, you know...
M: Sounds like he was the only one that had any touch with reality.
L: Well, and he would...took us to some union... Ira Verdell Lott 19
M: Yeah.
L: But leading up to something.
M: Yeah.
L: Leading up to something about how different...and even with him, you see...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...you see, that, yeah, that he was making these efforts, you know, about church architecture, and we would talk about the buildings. But we...in the summer, the whole the community would close down here in San Antonio, and we would all, we would move to Port Lavaca.
M: Uh-huh.
L: Where there’s...
M: Yeah.
L: ...ad spend the summer there. And this one summer – and I don’t know why this had never happened, I’ve been trying to think of how, when it happened – but we would all go on the bus, and there was a mid-point, you know, where we L: would stop...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...for some reason. Well, this particular summer, Father Decker, said, “Brother Lott, why don’t you ride with me in the car and we will go down...” and I guess we went down to open it up...
M: Uh-huh.Ira Verdell Lott 20
L: ...you know, for everybody else. So when we get to mid-point between someplace, this little town, he said, “Brother, you will stop now, and we’ll have, uh, uh, lunch, you know – go into the restaurant. And so I said, “Father, they’re not going to serve me, you know.” And he said, “What are you talking about?” He didn’t know, even with, you know, that his world was that...you know, that the law just didn’t permit that.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so – no, wait, I don’t know if I told him – I knew myself. He said, “We will go in.” And I, I’ve done this a number of times, even at the University of Texas when I was there. Sometimes we would go as a class field trip.
M: Uh-huh.
L: The faculty person, you know, all of a sudden...I used to tell my mother, you know, we’ve got to stop for coffee. You know what I mean. That was always. My mother said, “White people drink so much coffee.” And so my mother would say, “White people and that coffee – we’re going to stop for L: coffee.” But any rate, we would stop, you know. So we’d go into the restaurant and the young lady came up and she said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not able to serve you.” And Father Decker said, “What are you talking about? What do you mean?” So she said, “Well, we can’t serve colored people, you know.” And he said, “Well, oh, well, we’ll just Ira Verdell Lott 21
take our business elsewhere.” So we get into the car and I was kind of wondering, where in the hell does he think...
M: He’s been?
L: He’s been? You know, all this time. So he said, “Brother, can you think?” I said, “let’s go over to the Dairy Queen and get a...”
M: Yeah.
L: Thing. When we get to Port Lavaca, and then at the end of the summer...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...when I was coming back on the bus, Father Decker gave instructions to the Brother who was driving the bus that they were not to stop at that place. You know, because they...
M: ...[inaudible].
L: The segregation. Well, the Brothers, they didn’t know. “Why can’t we stop?”
M: Why can’t we stop?
L: You know. So the driver of – Dooley, Brother Dooley came back, you know, and he said, “Ira,” - he was another... L: he was an older person.
M: Yeah.
L: Like myself, had been a delayed vocation and hadn’t lived in that kind of world. He said, “Ira, you know, we have a problem.” You know. He said, “Father Decker has Ira Verdell Lott 22
told us, you know, not to stop or not to go... What...help me, you know, on this. The Brothers, you know, are giving me, you know, problems. And I said, “Look, stop, go in...”
M: Yeah.
L: “Eat your dinner,” you know. And so, I said, “I’ll take care of myself.” I said...he said, “Well, what are you going to do?” So one of the other guys, who was a friend of mine, you know, and I had told him, you know, what was going on. And so he and I went, you know, went to one of the Dairy Queens.
M: Yeah, yeah.
L: Now, that kind of thing was, you know, they stand out – those two incidents – they stand out in my mind. But I... for the time, you know, that I was with, you know, the Oblates, there was always a very open kind of thing, and I don’t have, you know... Now when I would get with...they didn’t, you know, in terms of...I wasn’t aware of. I remember after I was ordained, and we were spending that one year – we spent one year there – this was the time that there was riots in Detroit. And it was the first time that black priests, there were only in that time in the – this would have been in late ‘60s – at that time there were about maybe seventy or eighty black priests.
M: In the whole United States?
L: In the whole of the United States.Ira Verdell Lott 23
M: That were in the Oblates?
L: No, there were none in the Oblates.
M: None in the Oblates.
L: None in the Oblates in this country. There was...there was not...
M: So you’re saying you’re the only black Oblate priest?
L: In this country.
M: In this country.
L: In this country. But there were, you know. there were...
M: In other orders?
L: No, oh, in Africa, in...
M: Okay.
L: Many, many of the Oblates, as a matter of fact, in Africa, the majority, but, no.
M: Okay, let’s stop.
L: Okay.
END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 1.
SIDE 2.
L: ...kind of the, oh...
M: This is Sarah, get started here. This is tape 2, side 2. Sarah Massey, talking with Ira Lott. He’s discussing
L: being the only black in the Oblate priesthood in the United States. Okay, do you want to continue?
L: Uh, as I was saying, this...and so in the late ‘60s Ira Verdell Lott 24
there was a first meeting of black priests of any order - secular or anything - that had ever taken place. And it was to take place in Detroit. Detroit had just burned. They’d had the riots and all that kind of thing. So I asked permission, you know, to attend this. And I was given permission, which was a very unusual kind of thing. You know, this wasn’t something that you do all the time. And at that meeting the significant thing that we discovered...
M: How many were there?
L: There would have been like seventy. As well as I remember.
M: Okay.
L: That we met. And what we discovered – now, I had just been ordained – but of all of the priests who had been ordained, none of them had been put into positions of being pastor. They were all in academia or in administration. So this was very significant. In other words, as a priest, you know, you wanted to be a pastor.
M: Helping the people.
L: Well, not helping; well, either helping the...that’s part of it, but in terms of, career-wise, you move into the career of authority by becoming a pastor of...
M: The hierarchy of a position...
L: A position.
M: In the priesthood.Ira Verdell Lott 25
L: Is to be...
M: Is through a pastorate.
L: Is through a pastorate.
M: And the seventy of you were not.
L: None. Were not.
M: None of you.
L: Nobody. Now there was one priest who – that I can recall – or if they were they were assistants. You see, none...now maybe Larry Lucas in Chicago, but at least that was the what...
M: Uh-huh.
L: We presented. That was the image.
M: Uh-huh.
L: That was presented. Now there was a Bishop Perry, but he was an Auxiliary kind of a bishop, even in that position he wasn’t really on...
M: ...in the hierarchy, on the track.
L: On the track. That was the image...
M: Yeah.
L: ...that we... So, of course, the big thing that came up was a statement, you know, to come from this...
M: ...group.
L: Group. And the leaders, the leaders in this were from New York - Larry Lucas, fiery, click, click, click, they
L: were the sharp ones. Larry had been challenged by Ira Verdell Lott 26
Malcomb X out on the street in Harlem, you know, about what are you doing for the community?
M: The people, yeah.
L: What are you doing, you know, as a...
M: A black priest.
L: Yes. Malcomb saw Larry Lucas and he told him – was he out of his mind? You have to be crazy. You know it was – oh, it was so...he told all this. And so we came up with this huge...this statement which started off, the first of the thing, was that the American Roman Catholic Church was primarily a racist institution. So that was a huge, you know, kind of thing.
M: Yeah.
L: For these reasons.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so what we...then we decided, at that time, that we would, you know, approach our superiors and, as best we could, place ourselves – you know, aside from being a pastor - but to place ourselves in as conspicuous a position as possible. Whether...if you were in teaching, teach black. You know what I mean? It didn’t make any difference...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...you know, wherever you were but put yourself in the black community and, you know, as a kind of gesture that would be...Ira Verdell Lott 27
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...what we would do. And so we kind of fanned out. The group was called The Black Clergy Catholic – Black Clergy Caucus. Fanned out, you know, all around and approached bishops, and superiors in our case. So that was – and about that time I was getting my...or maybe, before it was...it kind of blends.
M: Uh-huh.
L: It kind of came in together. I had started in chaplaincy work.
M: Uh-huh.
L: At Santa Rosa, here in San Antonio.
M: Uh-huh.
L: As part of the training, clinical pastoral training.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And it was a conspicuous kind of...
M: Yeah, yeah.
L: ...public...
M: Yeah.
L: ...kind of thing.
M: Yeah.
L: And then it didn’t seem quite enough. There was an opening for training in mental health work.
M: Uh-huh.
L: In Washington.Ira Verdell Lott 28
M: Okay.
L: At St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. And I asked for permission, you know, to go for...
M: The training.
L: You know, that training. And for that year, you know, and came back, did you know some training or did some work at the mental hospital. And then a position at St. Elizabeth’s opened on the staff. And this was an opportunity for me to work with black – a majority, you know, mentally ill black patients and families and that type thing.
M: And were they poor?
L: Poor.
M: ...[inaudible].
L: Oh, yes, yes. St. Elizabeth’s is a – the public mental hospital – it’s the insane asylum. It used to be called the insane asylum for the poor in the District of Columbia. But there was a training program...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...there for priests who were coming in. So I presented to my, to my superiors, that this would be an opportunity for me to work with the poor people. But it’s also an opportunity for me to work with Catholic priests who haven’t had the experience of the training – of professional black people. Ira Verdell Lott 29
M: Uh-huh.
L: So I...that...I approached it...
M: Double.
L: Double...
M: ...[inaudible].
L: ...with a kind of thing like that.
M: So you, as a piece of that, besides in the mentally ill people, you did some training with other priests in this country who had not been exposed to professionals?
L: Yeah. Well...
M: ...[inaudible].
L: I was training them.
M: You were training?
L: I became...I joined the staff...
M: Okay.
L: ...as a trainer.
M: ...of other black priests?
L: No, no...
M: Other priests.
L: White – white priests.
M: Thank you.
L: White. It was, yes, that was the significance of that – that they were white, you see, and that they would...
M: Yeah. Yeah.
L: ...you know, we would have...we would interact with Ira Verdell Lott 30
each other. Today I was thinking about this because...and it’s kind of significant in terms of the students who I trained. I remember, I’ve had only one that I would call
L: difficult.
M: Reject?
L: Well, no.
M: Like...[inaudible].
L: No, but this priest, no, this priest – you know what I mean. I, for the year when I started out, you know, on the staff – this was a staff, not black] ... white priests.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And they knew what I was interested in and, so forth and so on, and we...I had one student who was of...he was Chinese, but had been raised in Hawaii. And different from any other priest whom I had worked with. There was no rapport and it was just a problem, you know, of how he was dealing with patients, and it was just a terrible, terrible kind of thing. And one day during our staff meeting, you know, I brought this up about his priest. And one of the guys said, “Do you think that there’s any racism? Is there a racial problem,” you know? And I said, “Oh, for crying out loud.” You know, that’s, you know, that’s ridiculous. You know that...I hadn’t had...you know, it just hadn’t...
M: Entered your...
L: ...entered my mind, you know, at all. Well, at the end Ira Verdell Lott 31
of the year, you know, when it came time for the evaluation, you know, I wrote, you know, the evaluation up and it was, you know, negative. It was what had happened and that type thing. And he, you know, had an opportunity to respond to
L: that and to meet, you know, with the training staff, you know, to get another opinion. You know, from the superiors – the director of the thing. So at that meeting – I don’t know if he said it - yeah, he must of said it there, and I don’t know if he put it in writing - but he said, “I think that maybe the problem that I’ve had with Father Lott is because he is of...he finds himself, you know, at the bottom of the, of the ladder. You know, that the racial, because of the racial thing, he sees himself at the bottom, you know, of the thing.” So when we had the...yeah it was in writing, you know, and he made his statement. And so I was telling him, I said, “You know, maybe, you know, that might have had something to do with it.” I said, “You see, because the mistake - if you were seeing me or thinking of me that way - I’ve never thought of myself at the bottom of anything.” Do you know...and this is myself perception.
M: Yeah.
L: You know, of who...
M: Yeah.
L: And kind of the way that I, you know, in terms of my work in the seminary, you know, and all that kind of thing.Ira Verdell Lott 32
M: In life.
L: In life. I have really never thought of myself as the bottom.
M: The bottom. Yeah.
L: I just hadn’t. And I’ve always thought of that. But
L: in terms of students - and it stays in my mind because I’ve never had any, you know, problem - and maybe I’ve been more alert to it as I...I was just starting in a sense, and maybe I became more comfortable in bringing up the racial kind of thing.
M: Yeah.
L: Out front, you know.
M: Yeah, because obviously...done with that guy.
L: Well, later...
M: You needed to be...
L: Well, after the...well, what we learned about him from other people – he went back to Hawaii and all that - and somewhere or another at one of the conferences or whatever, we learned...and he was an obsessive kind of person. He had other kinds of problems – but we learned that and this will sound very funny and all that – but that early, while he was in the seminary, he had been thrown off of a horse, or kicked, and had a metal plate and that had affected his brain, you know, in some kind of...and so that it accounted for the difficulties.Ira Verdell Lott 33
M: Some behavior...
L: His behavior – difficulties. We didn’t know that, you know, at the time. But he stands out in my mind, and I had a learning from it.
M: Yeah.
L: In terms of how people would see me. My work there,
L: and what I have found in terms of my assignments, you know - going to St. Elizabeth’s and all that – I’ve always taken – this is aside from the racism...
M: Yeah – oh, yeah, yeah.
L: But is aside from the racism. But generally I’ve always asked or told the superiors what I want. You know, I had to tell my students that. The students would come through and they would be kind of, whether oppressed...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...by their superiors. And you would...I would ask them, “Did you ever say to your superiors what your wishes are? What is it that you want to do? You know it’s not as an ultimatum.”
M: Uh-huh.
L: You see, but say, “This is what I want to do. And that’s what I’ve always attempted to do, you know with my...” and give a reason, you know.
M: Uh-huh.
L: What I wanted to do. And that was how I approached the Ira Verdell Lott 34
working in St. Elizabeth’s. And then after I was there for twenty-one, twenty-two years, and so I had gotten to a point of retirement...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...kind of thing. And looking back on it, I’m pretty sure I was burned-out. I mean...
M: Uh-huh.
L: After, you know... And aside from the working with the patients, what had happened - and it was kind of I think it’s, it’s kind of by accident...
M: Uh-huh.
L: I think about it by accident. See, when I went into chaplaincy, it was working with patients, and the training part was just an aside.
M: Yeah.
L: I always like having interns and...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...students, you know, around me. But as the years went by and the requirements – some of the training programs which we had, or the training program – became more and more attached to university and academic requirements. You see, which was something that I never had in mind. I never thought of myself as a teacher.
M: Or as a faculty member.
L: Or as a faculty member. Or of having to give somebody Ira Verdell Lott 35
something that would go...
M: On their transcripts.
L: On their transcript, account for them, you know, being ordained or not ordained.
M: Um.
L: But that kind of snuck up on me. I was always very, very involved with the professional groups. I enjoyed that very much. Of, you know, going to the meetings and acting
L: on committees and that type thing. And I’m kind of proud because I was on the board of the chaplaincies for the professional organization of, in working on standards and that type of thing, as the years went by. But I really...I ...but the thing of going up the ladder and because of the architecture thing...
M: Uh-huh.
L: I always took the...it was very, very important to me of on-going education – you know, continuing, you know, my professional...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...education.
M: Uh-huh.
L: So I was just constantly, you know - I took classes, you know, and things at Georgetown and all that kind of thing. And but never really thought of myself...so I moved up, up, up, up the ladder in terms of supervisory status, Ira Verdell Lott 36
M: Yeah.
L: ...And that responsibility of trainer.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so that after twenty-two years...
M: Go ahead.
L: After twenty-two years or so - and then there was a time for, for...I’d reached, as far as the government was concerned, the retirement age.
M: Um.
L: There was a possibility of retiring. And so then I deserved a kind of sabbatical, you know, to do...which is...
M: Uh-huh.
L: What I was doing, started doing and what I wanted to do was, you know, I was taking classes – took some Spanish, took some different kind of classes working on the family history kind of thing. And the sabbatical just sort of stretched out and stretched out. It stretched out ...[inaudible]. Then the other was trying to...and I haven’t been...afterwards done, like coming to a point of seeing myself in the parish, you know, working. See, I was never...I was always a chaplain.
M: Yes, yes.
L: Do you see?
M: Yeah.
L: So the...at a certain point in...as a priest, you know, Ira Verdell Lott 37
you’re either in a parish...
M: Yeah.
L: ...Or you’re, whatever.
M: Yeah.
L: You know, a chaplain...
M: Yeah.
L: You know, type thing. And at first I thought I would see myself as...you know, I said well, I’ll go - maybe a retreat master or something...
M: Yeah.
L: ...in counseling.
M: Yeah.
L: ...Which I’d, you know, taken courses in and...
M: Yeah.
L: ...Certificates and all that thing in counseling. And then just the sabbatical just sort of stretched out and out. M: So how do you see yourself now? Do you see yourself as a priest? A retired priest? Or as a...just a man of the world?
L: Kind of all of that, I guess. And right now I’m a priest. I met – I hadn’t told you this – the...Father Garcia, when I went over to accept the award...
M: Oh, the Fehrenbach Award?
L: The Fehrenbach. He was there – he’s the pastor at the cathedral.Ira Verdell Lott 38
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, where I go...
M: Yeah.
L: ...go to mass. And...
M: At San Fernando.
L: At San Fernando. Uh-huh. That’s where I like to go there. And so I saw him and I said, hello, you know. And he, “Ira, what are you...? I said, “You know, you’re my pastor now.” You know. He said, what do you mean? And I said, “I’ve come to all of your ceremonies, that I was able
L: to compliment him, you know, on his liturgies and the...”
M: Homilies.
L: Homilies.
M: Yeah.
L: And how he involves the people. He said, “You what?” I said, I’m right there. I saw the crucifixion, you know, at Easter time.” And I said, “Really, it brought me to tears,” I said, “it was so well done.” I said, “I haven’t seen anything like that in this country. Since I was in Africa.”
M: Yeah.
L: And I said, “I love, you know, your sermons and...” So I was able to give him some honest... He said, “You know, I really appreciate that. Well, why don’t you help me out?” Ira Verdell Lott 39
I said, “Look, you’ve gone too far.” You know what I mean. I said, “I’m not, at this point...” And he said, “Well, we’ll talk about it.” But I – so I see - at the present time I’m inactive. You know, I don’t have those responsibilities. I’ve been...when I reflect on it I’ve often wondered whether or not – and I haven’t read anything about this – that it is possible for someone to have a, what we call a vocation for a period of time. You know, that there is a period of time that you are called to be that, and then...
M: It’s over.
L: It’s over. You know, because – and it’s interesting
L: – when I go...I love to go to San Fernando, because it’s convenient.
M: Um.
L: And to the other parish. But when I’m praying, or when I’m reflecting and sitting there, I’m actually more back in touch with who I was and where I was when I would go to St. Ann’s – St. Austin’s in Austin. You know, I’ve just, you know, just really praying, you know.
M: Um.
L: Just me, you know. And I don’t have any huge need, you know, to have, you know, that responsibility. And maybe it’s – and I’ve told some of my priest confreres, you know, when we talked about it - and I said, you see, different Ira Verdell Lott 40
from some of the priests whom I’d supervised who had only known the life...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...their identity was...
M: You had – yeah, you had another life.
L: Involved. Myself was there before I went. Some of the priests whose identity, you know, it’s enmeshed.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, in the functioning in that. I...that was...
M: The other thing is, though, that you’re doing what you have, quote, preached.
L: Oh.
M: You told your students that... have you ever asked?
L: Oh.
M: What is it that you wanted?
L: What do I want? Yes.
M: And you have stated that at this stage of your life you have said this is what I want.
L: This is what I want and I’d like, in terms of my...the Oblate priests, you know, they are very, very supportive, you know. Like even Dave, he’s not an Oblate, he said,”Ira, man, if you need anything, check me out, you know, let me know.”
M: Yeah.
L: That’s the relationship.Ira Verdell Lott 41
M: Yeah.
L: And we’ve...and that my relationship, you know, with the Oblates is still...
M: There.
L: There. It...I...[inaudible] when I go back, when we were in...when I met the other black priests, and when I met some nuns and people, many of them talk about how horrible things were for them. And they had lots of stories about how the racism and that...
M: Um.
L: And I never really had any of those stories. And they could never believe me when I told them that my...what racism that I would find with the Oblates would be the same kind of dense attitude of just whites in general.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But that I didn’t, I’ve never – just the contrary...
M: Uh-huh.
L: That the people whom I have – as far as my, you know, my development... Now I’ve had some guys who were in positions of authority, but – and the problem that I had with them had to do with their incompetence. Now that’s whether they were white or whether they were black.
M: Yeah.
L: It didn’t have anything to do with...
M: With competence. Ira Verdell Lott 42
L: You know, incompetence.
M: It’s our mutual intolerance of incompetence.
L: Intolerance. I had one...
M: Yeah.
L: ...One person who was extremely rigid, not open to anything, and another person who frankly was just dumb, you know. And yet he was in a position of authority. Now he was not an Oblate. This was at St. Elizabeth’s.
M: I want to ask you something, Ira. And this may not even be tape stuff, but as an individual, at this point, and as a priest, do you feel that as a priest you had responsibilities beyond yourself?
L: Um.
M: And that what you’re dealing with now...
L: Um.
M: ...is that you are responsible only for yourself? And do not have responsibilities, beyond yourself?
L: Um.
M: And that you reached a point, when you talk about burn-out, that you no longer wanted to be responsible for anything beyond yourself? And that you still contain the beliefs and all the other things...
L: You know, I think that...
M: ...that are part of being a priest?
L: That’s exactly where I am. I’m going to reflect on Ira Verdell Lott 43
that more, you know, tonight. Because that’s exactly... yeah, when I had those, had those responsibilities, which were...
M: And you were tired.
L: ...beyond me. You know what I mean. And I...right now I don’t have that...
M: That’s the only thing that’s different.
L: ...response, but that is exactly correct.
M: Because in yourself and in your life, you are leading a priestly life, there’s nothing different.
L: ...[inaudible].
M: Yeah, you know, the difference is that you have responsibility for nothing beyond yourself.
L: I guess. And interacting with people. Sometimes I’ll see some of the street people, you know, and I will do something. And it really, you know, is out of kindness or, L: you know. And I’ll say, did I do that because I was a priest or...?
M: Or because I wanted to?
L: Or I wanted to. But it was because I wanted to. It didn’t have anything, and that frankly, I think, I’m not sure, I’m going to put this on it – why it bothers me even when I’m at the library, they call me Mr. Lott or Ira. I love it. And then they know that I’m a priest...
M: Uh-huh.Ira Verdell Lott 44
L: You know, and we talk about it and that type thing. But it would...it bothers me when...if they would put that cloak on me.
M: The collar.
L: Yes. That jacket, as we would say. Something is running through my mind, and I can’t think of it. Why that – oh, I remember the other night, Jo Plyler[?], who is the department director at the – down where I do the volunteer work. We were there at a lecture one night, and she was introducing me to one of the Friends of the Library - one of their board members. She was wanting to...and she was saying, “Oh, I want you to meet Ira, and we’re so happy to have him to, you know, coming up, you know, doing volunteer work.” And I think to myself, “Jo, that is enough. You know just let it be.” You know. And this is Ira Lott and we’re so happy to have him. You know, he comes up and he likes the thing. And I was thinking. So I thought about it
L: and I know that that was on Jo’s mind, you see. But there was no reason to tack on there, He is a Roman Catholic priest.”
M: Uh-huh.
L: It was – this is Ira Lott and we’re happy to have him. And so that my relationship with that woman...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...could be based on the service. Ira Verdell Lott 45
M: That you’re providing.
L: That I am providing.
M: ...[inaudible].
L: You know, and not the fact that I – does that make any sense to you?
M: Oh, yes, yes.
L: And that fits in with...
M: Yeah.
L: What the...the way. But clearly that the responsibilities were beyond my...[inaudible].
M: See, and the minute that I introduce you as retired priest...
L: Yeah.
M: It puts responsibilities back on you to behave in a certain way or say things...
L: ...[inaudible].
M: Or meet other people’s expectations...
L: Expectations.
M: ...[inaudible].
L: You don’t...you know what I mean.
M: Yeah.
L: Then what does, you know.
M: Otherwise you’re into the same thing but...
L: But it’s...
M: It’s how they perceive you.Ira Verdell Lott 46
L: It how they perceive me. But that might not bother anybody else. But I like it, you know, and this, you know, Mr. Lott – you know what I mean.
M: See, people come with expectations of priesthood and fatherhood.
L: And they...
M: And they lay it on; they lay it on.
L: And it’s, you know. And...but I...but to just to relate to me, it...and, yeah, and then sometimes people say, “Well, is that fair to people, you know, that if all of a sudden that part of you is not known?” And I say, ”Well, you know, it turns off the...
END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 2.

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THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: Segregation In Austin and the Priesthood INTERVIEW WITH: Ira Verdell Lott (Tape 1 of 2)
DATE: 17 May 2001
PLACE:
INTERVIEWER: Sarah Massey
TAPE 1, SIDE 1
M: Today is Thursday, March 7 – May 17, 2001. My name is Sarah Massey and I’m with the Institute of Texan Cultures. I’m here today to interview Ira Verdell Lott. And he was born and raised in Austin, but I’ll let him tell you about that. Ira, when is your birthday?
L: June 2, 1934.
M: Okay. And were you born in Austin?
L: In Austin, Travis County.
M: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about your family -your brothers and sisters?
L: Uh, I’m the fifth of six children - five boys and one girl. My...it was a nuclear family: my father and mother. My mother was originally...is...was originally from Travis County; my father from Goliad. And all of my early life was spent in Travis County, in Austin, Texas, my education, public school education. My family is basically is a middle-class family in the black community. You probably would think of us as upper-middle class. That would be, Ira Verdell Lott 2
well, for that period...for that time because my father was L: a businessman in lumber and real estate. My father... my father was educated at Tuskegee – Tuskegee Institute. He was there probably during the time of Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and those two influenced his thinking. And we can talk about that later. My mother was born in Travis County, and she went to Sam Houston College, which today we would probably think of it as a junior...what we would call a community college.
M: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
L: Small college for Negroes at that time. And that’s where my father and mother met in, I think, in the early 1900s. And started their family there. My father had come to Sam Houston and, as I understand it, he might have been teaching carpentry or something - that’s what he took at Tuskegee. And had come to Austin and was either doing carpentry or teaching carpentry, and met my mother. And they married and started their family. They moved to Victoria, where my oldest brother was born, and spent some time there. My mother did not like the Victoria area, and the...they would...his family was from Cologne, which is a small community there. And she didn’t like that life at all, and I guess encouraged him, and so they moved back to Travis County and started the family there. And my father was in...did carpentry for a number of years. And then about...Ira Verdell Lott 3
it would have been during the ‘30s, or late ‘20s, he started a lumber business and used...started out as used lumber and
L: that type thing. And so, that’s...
M: How did your father get...really your parents were very well educated for the times.
L: For the times.
M: And how did your father get from Cologne to Tuskegee?
L: I asked my oldest brother that once, and he probably... he said he walked or rode a horse. In those days...
M: Yeah. That’s how he got there physically. I mean, I was just curious how...
L: Well, as I understand it, you see, Booker T. Washington in those days would make tours through the South...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...and would call together leading men, you know, of the community. So my father would have been a young boy at that time, but from what I understand he – Booker T. Washington - would ride the train, and when he would get to small towns, some of the people whom he had educated...
M: Um.
L: You see, he had a network. And I don’t have the names of the men in those small towns, and they would come together and, you know, he would talk about his idea of education at Tuskegee. And, you know, invite young men to come – I don’t know about women in those days.Ira Verdell Lott 4
M: Yeah, yeah.
L: But it was probably young men, you know, and so... But I asked my brother – my oldest brother – how did Daddy get L: to...get to Tuskegee? And he said he probably walked. Now that I think about it he might have gone on the train.
M: Yeah.
L: But in those days it would have been financed by the community, you know, something like that.
M: Yeah.
L: And then when you get to Tuskegee, you earned your keep...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...by building that Institution. So that was...how would I put that together?
M: And then where did you live in Austin, since most of your life was in Austin?
L: In Austin. Near Tillotson College, which, you know, is near the present day what we call the State Cemetery. In the...when I grew up we called it the Confederate Cemetery. To the very...and I was thinking about that last night – it’s very interesting. Since we were talking about the whole thing of racism in Austin, and segregation. When I think...it was very interesting that the street that was immediately around the Confederate Cemetery, as well as I can remember, was paved.Ira Verdell Lott 5
M: Um.
L: But when you crossed the line, you were no longer around that particular property, it was gravel or just dirt – I can’t remember. When I go to Austin now, everything is L: all paved and, but when I grew up the streets were all dirt. And that’s my symbol of what Austin is today – everything is all paved up, prettified, and the name has been changed.
M: Was there a college there when you were growing up? L: Oh. So there was Tillotson College, which was a one-block down from the State Cemetery. But there was also Sam Houston College, which was over on present day – it would be 35 – Interstate 35 – which, now we were talking about this, where the Marriott Hotel – you know to localize it.
M: Um.
L: And so Tillotson College – well, Tillotson College was founded by missionaries of the Church of Christ, I believe. And it was a girl’s school - a missionary school for girls. Sam Houston was formed by United...by Methodists, and it was inter-...you know...
M: Mixed.
L: Yeah. Or collegiate – that type of thing.
M: Yeah.
L: Both of them were liberal arts schools, but formed by missionaries.Ira Verdell Lott 6
M: For black people.
L: For blacks. But the missionary – especially Tillotson, the missionaries were white from New England. The faculty at Sam Houston was mixed, as well as I can remember. And so I lived down...just down the street from Tillotson, and used L: to play over on their campus. My grade school was just across the street. And the...our family church was...that was Methodist Church, was kind of a part of Houston – Sam Houston...
M: Community.
L: Community. So that the center of life was as, when I think about it, was between those two colleges. And so that the professional and educated community came from...
M: You mentioned one time your mother dragging you off to hear everybody that came...[inaudible] what was some of...
L: Well, you see, the school, they would form...they had lectures and artists as part of the life of the school, so that the two schools, the presidents and those people - would arrange for speakers and artists to come from the East and they would present different lecturers and artists.
M: Who were some of the people you heard?
L: Oh, there were – you name them. Anyone. You see, in those days these would be anyone who was part of the, say, the Harlem Renaissance. You’d see W.B.DuBois, Marian Anderson, and then they would – at different auditoriums -Ira Verdell Lott 7
they would have Count Basie, you know, any...Langston Hughes would do readings. And they called those...now this was later – this would have been in the earlier days, you see. In the earlier days before I was...probably before I was born. I don’t know when those colleges were founded, but
you see, this would be where George Washington Carver would L: have came there and Booker T. Washington and people...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, of that stature. Educators would come from the other black – Negro colleges.
M: Uh-huh.
L: The network of Negro colleges.
M: Do you...who do you remember coming? People that you had experienced.
L: In my day?
M: Yeah, in your day.
L: We’re talking about, yeah, I can remember Marian Anderson, especially. Or...and I will never forget the Duke Ellington concert. Now when someone...and then, you see, you would have the University of Texas people. For someone like Duke Ellington the...that would be at...they would arrange to have that out at the University. And, well, I remember that. And one of my first...oh, and then when I was a kid there was a young girl – a prodigy – her name was Philipa Skylar. She was just a little girl, and she was a Ira Verdell Lott 8
concert – her father as I understand...and, see, they were from the Philadelphia society – a mixed marriage, as well as I can remember. Her mother was white; father was black. And they had this little girl who was a prodigy. And I remember Philipa Skylar. Her father, as well as I can remember, wrote for the Philadelphia Enquirer – one of the papers. So she would come...she came. Oh, and I remember a L: performance of what was called – it was a play, my first Broadway play – which was Carmen Jones, which was the play with black characters. And this was at the University too, with orchestra, and Carmen and...just that I’d never, ever seen anything like that. And so that it had come, you know, that it had been running on Broadway, so that whole show, you see, would come down. So I remember that. And well, as I said, Duke Ellington.
M: And how did you...was it your mother...was this your mother’s influence?
L: Well, it’s kind of hard to say. My mother...it was kind of both of them. You see, in the black community, in those days, the church and the school, they were the center of everything. And so you would have...they would have each year or different artistic things, which you weren’t able to go to, you know, in the other, you know, regular downtown and all that kind of thing. And so that as part of the church, you know, going to church - and this would be a Ira Verdell Lott 9
secular side - and so that depending on what the event was. It was always a Sunday afternoon at four o’clock, you know, unless it was, you know, another thing at the University where they had to have a bigger stage. So that...there was one singer I remember – Ann Miller – William Warfield, who is still singing. So that, you know, you sort of – and so the president of the college...I have to...this was much, much later from the founding days when my father and mother L: were meeting...
M: Uh-huh.
L: So there was the president of Sam Houston whose name was Downes, Carl Downes, and his wife, Marion, something, Downes, was a concert singer from Baltimore. She would have been from the Baltimore society...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...of black people. So her family had contacts and connections with the different artists, and he wrote a book called Meet the Negro - a small book. And in that book, which I would give anything to have it nowadays – it’s just a small book – but all of the people who were...who he had interviewed and who they knew as friends were...their lives were written about in that book. And then they would come on these different tours, called The Artists Series.
M: Um.
L: And he was Carl Downes, was a very impressive person.Ira Verdell Lott 10
M: What do you remember about going to school - high school and stuff in Austin?
L: Well, all of that, when I think about it, I...see, the teachers and all would have been...they had their degrees and all from Fisk, and some of them, you know, had gone to Northern schools. And so, the schools there in Austin were college preparatory, which was somewhat different.
M: Uh-huh.
L: Or even - one of the things that I learned – even the L: grade school teachers - you had a situation where the teachers, many of them who were from the North or from California, who couldn’t get into the public school system, could get positions in the schools – at least in Austin so that...
M: Now your school, high school, was it segregated?
L: Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. This was...we’re talking about...
M: And what years are we talking about?
L: We’re talking about – yeah, it would have been segregated until the ‘52s.
M: So when were you in high school?
L: I would have been in high school from ’48 until ’51, ’52.
M: Okay.
L: So that they were...all of the education was segregated. And until the...that world, you see, was a Ira Verdell Lott 11
closed...there was no official inter-action between...that I was aware of.
M: Could you go to the Ellington concert at the University of Texas?
L: Oh, yeah.
M: You could.
L: Well, we would go there. yes. See the college –
the Sam Houston, Dr. Downes and whoever was the president -they would make some kind of contract with whoever at the university, see. This was sponsored by the university, but L: they had the auditorium.
M: Uh-huh.
L: So that when Marian Anderson, or these people...and they needed a larger place. And then, that was always... and I’ve never been able to...and I think, as well as I can remember, that the audiences were segregated at the university. But it was always a bone of contracting, whether or not the performer would perform before a segregated audiences. Some would, some wouldn’t. And so that became a part of the negotiating, so that when you’d go to these things – go to these performances - there was...I always felt it was a kind of a tense feeling.
M: Uh-huh.
L: Because it was sort of...for the faculty of both schools to...right at the, you know, at the edge of breakingIra Verdell Lott 12
the law...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, whether or not they would do anything. Something else that I remember about going to the university and my high school: My English teacher, Mrs. Arnold, knew the drama instructor, or the English instructor, at the University of Texas. And, as well, I think his name was Dr. Payne. And he...every year the university would have Shakespearean performances, and Mrs. Arnold had an arrangement with him where we would go – the students from her class or maybe any others, too – I can remember walking L: out there, of going to the university to see the, not the performance, but we would see the dress rehearsals.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And we would...that would give the performers an opportunity to act, you know, before, you know, an audience. So we would see all of the Shakespearean plays, you know, that he put on. And then I remember one - I saw the Glass Menagerie. They would do any of the dramas; he would just call Mrs. Arnold and she would arrange, you know, for us to go.
M: Uh.
L: And we would either ride the bus...maybe we would ride the bus out there or walk. I can remember the walking part of it for some reason. Ira Verdell Lott 13
M: Well, were the buses segregated?
L: Of course. See, everything...see, we’re talking about a time when everything was segregated. Everything was segregated. And so, you know...but you have to, kind of thing. Like Dr. Payne, you see. He and Mrs. Arnold knew each other and as educators and artists and that type of thing, they had respect for each other. And they would just make these arrangements - so that you lived in this kind of dual world. So everything was segregated, I mean that was...
M: Yeah. Did you go to movies and things downtown then?
L: No. That was...well, that was...there was one theater
L: called the Ritz, which...there were two theaters – one called the Harlem, which was on the east side of town where I lived. in that part of town. And then there was the Ritz Theater, which was downtown. And we - naturally they were segregated. Well, the Harlem was not segregated because it was in the black community. But if you would go to the Ritz you always had to sit up...go up these little stairs to the side, and that type of thing. Now it’s on...again, it’s...the Ritz is now, it’s on 6th Street, this is another thing. When I was growing up, 6th Street was the...not... what would you call it?
M: Red light district?
L: Red light district, thank you very much. It would have Ira Verdell Lott 14
been, well, you didn’t – but it was right down the street from the Driscoll Hotel. It was kind of subtlety, you know what I mean.
M: Seedy?
L: Kind...yes, you know there were beer joints and all this kind of thing, but you could...they had this theater, you know, and you would go and then you would walk... And this is one of the funny things, when I go back to Austin, that 6th Street is now gentrified. It’s very posh as far as, you know, the change.
M: Yeah.
L: It’s an interesting – as far as city planning and growth, it’s an interesting thing, because, for a period of L: time along East – 6th Street – you had the black merchants. There was a period of time, when Austin was smaller, they were black. It wasn’t a red light district. As a matter of fact, my father had an office there some years ago, a real estate office. This is before he went into the lumber business. And so you would have a dentist, a black dentist, black grocery stores, haberdasheries, barbers, beauticians. The whole thing was on 6th Street. And somehow or other the Ritz Theater was in there. I don’t know exactly how that...or the change so that by...there was, there seemed to have been a point in time, in the evolution of Jim Crow...Ira Verdell Lott 15
M: Uh-huh.
L: When the black businesses were subtlety or not so subtlety moved east to...
M: Okay.
L: ...to East Avenue. So that, after a certain period of time, if you look at the maps, you know, of Austin, that street between Congress Avenue and East Avenue in Austin was the colored section.
M: Yeah.
L: And then as time went on, the commercial enterprises of blacks moved further...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...further east. And then downtown and 6th Street was no longer black.
M: Uh-huh.
L: As far as Austin, and that kind of move for anyone who knows Austin, if you go to the public library, where the public library is now, as I understand it, that area in there also had black or coloreds or Negroes.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And then the city fathers in the ‘30s, after the ‘20s, or the ‘30s, and this is a matter of record, you can look at the – I looked at some of these at the Barker – the minutes of the meetings of the...
M: City council?Ira Verdell Lott 16
L: City council minutes, thank you, where a decision was made that the public services, which had been in those areas, would be diminished or decreased so that if you were black it just sort of served your interest, you see, to move over to the East Side. And then that property, in those days...today we would call it urban renewal.
M: Yeah.
L: Or in South Africa you would call it apartheid. You know, just simply moving, but it was much more subtle than that, and it became...you know. As a matter of fact, not in that area, but even, say, my church, Wesley Methodist Church, where it’s located now on San Bernard Street, originally was in what is downtown Austin.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But...and a number of other colored churches were in
L: what is considered, now, downtown Austin. But at a certain point in time it seems that the trustees and people were made an offer, which they could not refuse, kind of, to buy some land over...
M: Gotcha.
L: ...[inaudible].
M: Yeah, yeah, okay.
L: I’m not trying to...that all of sudden, so that if you go there now you don’t find any Negroes.
M: Okay. Ira Verdell Lott 17
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1.
SIDE 2.
M: This is side 2 of tape 1. I’m talking with Ira Verdell Lott. This is Sarah Massey. Ira, what, once you graduated from high school, what happened? What did you do then?
L: Well, I went to college in Virginia.
M: Okay.
L: I went to Hampton.
M: Now what made your folks send you clear back East to school?
L: Well, originally my father had...my father...it was kind of decided, you know – I would go to Tuskegee.
M: Okay.
L: His school. But it was kind of decided, looking back on it, it was... I decided that I would be going to study architecture, and there was an architect, John Chase, who
L: was working in my father’s office, or in the lumberyard, in the real estate and he had gone to Hampton.
M: Um.
L: And...
M: Did all of your brothers and sisters go to school?
L: Yes.
M: So your whole family went to college?
L: Went to college, yeah. There was never any...that was an...as well as I can remember, there was never any questionIra Verdell Lott 18
if we could. And looking back on it now, you know, we could afford it. I mean, it was sort of like, there was no question that you would go. Well, no, the one brother, Harry, did not go to school. He was my second to the oldest. There was Oral, who was the oldest brother, then there was Harry...
M: Uh-huh.
L: The second brother. He wasn’t as academically inclined. What we discovered – it was so unusual that he didn’t go - but it wasn’t until the second world war that they learned that he had a hearing problem. In those days nothing was ever done about it. And so he didn’t go to... but in the family and in town – it was sort of like one of the characters in the family, he was always the most popular, you know, among the girls and the socialite, you know, kind of person. But he never...he didn’t go to college. All the rest of us did. My brother Virgil was a L: lawyer, my sister studied business at...economics or something at Houston-Tillotson. Then my youngest brother was...did computer – he was the later generation; he went into computer or something sort of like that. I want to back up; can we back up?
M: Sure.
L: We were talking about when...after I was invited to do this tape, something came to my mind about an incident that Ira Verdell Lott 19
happened when I was in high school. And I don’t know how this fits in with this tape, but maybe anybody who is listening to this can make of it whatever they want to, in terms of the segregation and the relationship between the races. Mrs. Arnold, who was my English teacher, and it would have been the 10th or the 11th grade, I don’t know. But...and I mentioned her before, you know, very interested and she had different contacts, but there seemed...there was a young lady who was, a white lady, who...a student who was doing a project, and her project in some kind of way was to go to the white school, which was Austin High, and have the young, the students in the class - these were high school students - to have them talk about their knowledge and what they thought of Negroes. And then to take the tape recorder to us and have us talk about what we thought about white people. And she was very nice, and Mrs. Arnold explained this to us and this type thing. And we, you know, we talked, you know, of our experiences of...
M: Uh-huh.
L: Of white people.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And of the incidents, you know, that we had. And vice versa – you get the picture.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And then...so she came back and played that tape. And Ira Verdell Lott 20
as she began to play the tape, we begin to hear the white people referring to us as niggers, and it seemed to us, you know, that it was more demeaning and disrespectful than we had been towards them. And so, all of a sudden the kids in the class...some girl said, “Did you hear what they said?” You know, they began, “Mrs. Arnold, did you hear what they called us?” You know, like that. And it was just a big, you know about a...just a big kind of explosion. And Mrs. Arnold and the young lady, she was kind of embarrassed and everything...
M: Yeah.
L: And so she said, “Why don’t we just turn the...”
M: ...Tape off.
L: Turn the tape off. And didn’t, and when I think back to it, didn’t use that opportunity to talk with us.
M: I was going to say, did you not talk about it then after...?
L: We didn’t talk about it. Now today I think we would have talked about it.
M: Yeah.
L: But we didn’t. I cannot remember us...
M: Discussing it.
L: Discussing it. Today we would have, you know, but that came, you know, to my mind.
M: Yeah. This would have been 1950 if you were in the Ira Verdell Lott 21
10th grade, about 1950.
L: This would have been in 1950. And I don’t know whether we had said anything, but it seemed to us...
M: Yeah.
L: You know we hadn’t ever heard...
M: Yeah.
L: You know, and it was just being...
M: Well, did you have any experience of violence? Or...?
L: No. See, in those days and times there was not...I was even thinking about, you know, in high school or grade school, there was a relationship and the classes were smaller and the community was smaller. There was such a relationship between the...my...your family and the teachers, that if something went wrong, before you got home, you know...
M: They knew about it.
L: You knew that you were going to have to deal with this that took place, it was just a close...that was a different time altogether. Violence wasn’t anything you even...
M: Uh-huh.
L: That you even thought about.
M: Well, you must have. When you went...what did your mother think going back East to school? Here is her youngest son, almost, leaving home.
L: No. Ira Verdell Lott 22
M: She have any words of wisdom for you?
L: Well, I was next to the youngest.
M: Yeah.
L: Next to the youngest. No. My father had died. My father died the summer that I was to go to Hampton. And I was able to...he was sick in the hospital, and the application...I was at least able to tell him that I was going to...
M: Uh-huh.
L: That I had been accepted to go to Hampton. And...
M: Were those good years for you? What did you study there?
L: I studied architecture there.
M: Okay.
L: A funny thing happened; it doesn’t have anything, you know...one of the things that we laugh about in my family in terms of...of course, well, this...there were two different things, if you, in those days - this was in ‘50s... Transportation was...
M: Yeah.
L: ...still segregated. So you had to travel, in order to avoid the South you...we would take the Missouri-Pacific up to...
M: Railroad?
L: Railroad, Missouri-Pacific Railroad, yeah. Up to Ira Verdell Lott 23
Cincinnati, and take the Baltimore and Ohio and go straight across and you would avoid...so that the Negro or colored children, young people from Houston, one train would begin in Houston and the two trains would join together. It was either in Temple, Texas, or Palestine, somewhere up the road, and so the...and then the partying – that’s what I remember. Everybody hadn’t seen each other. But in terms of going away to school, this is a big, huge...
M: Well, did you party on the train then? Is this a big deal?
L: Oh, this is...well, you know people – you know, laughing, seeing friends and everybody. I can remember people playing cards, and there was no such thing as marijuana in those days, but people would be smoking. I can remember the smoke. I didn’t smoke before I went to college; I started smoking after I was at college. It was so funny – I had told my girlfriend, you know, goodbye. My girlfriend was going to Oberlin, Ohio - she was studying music. And I think that she was still...she was going out there with two or three, maybe about three or four different girls who were, you know, that we had dated and all that kind of thing. But at any rate, I had made all of my
L: goodbyes, and this was the farewell, you know, to...and my mother and my sister and all of my family, you know, and everybody was at the station. The train comes in, this Ira Verdell Lott 24
streamline train from San Antonio, you know, to start on this journey, my first trip. You know, the luggage was all on the train, and I was saying goodbye, and when I got on the platform, my mother says, “Now, where is your ticket?” And I was dressed up. You know in those days, you know, you’d have a tie and, you know, all dressed up. And I stuck my hand in the...and I didn’t have my ticket. And she said, “Fool, how am I going to – here you’re going away, where is the ticket?” I said, “I left it, it’s on the dining room table.” And so she got on the phone and called the lumber company, and my brother, you know, the train was, “All aboard.” You know, to get... All of my girlfriends – I was so embarrassed. I will never, ever forget that. And the train, you know, pulled off, you know, and my...just gone. Here I was stranded and had to go home. I was so, and so they always – so to this day, to this day, if I am going to make any kind of trip, the night before, a ticket... I make sure that my ticket is in, you know, whatever is my immediate, my immediate kind of things. But I went home that night and I was so ashamed and just everything. All I could do, I just went to a movie, I think. And I’ll never forget the movie that I went to see – Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Cliff in – what was the one?
M: American Tragedy?
L: Yes. Well, you know, that one. I never will forget Ira Verdell Lott 25
the American Tragedy. I’ll never forget it. And I was just by myself. And so the next day...
M: Yeah. And were you sitting in the balcony?
L: Uh? No, this was at the Harlem.
M: Oh, okay.
L: No. Not then. But, any rate, so the next day when it was time to go, I was just all by myself - the girl, my friends – my mother went down and my sister, you know, but it was not the party.
M: That it would have been.
L: But that was a huge...
M: Well, what was the deal about going through Ohio, and taking a train – not through the South? I don’t understand that.
L: Danger. It was, yeah, the travel. You see, you had about two days of travel on the train, and then the accommodations, you know, on the train and...
M: Did you have a sleeper or did you stay up all night?
L: We would stay up, you know, all the kids, you know, all the kids, but we were safe. For some reason or other you did not travel in those days, and I guess the trains weren’t as nice, but if you could avoid Mississippi, Alabama, that would have meant going on the train through Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia and that, so that you just didn’t do
L: that if you could afford it.Ira Verdell Lott 26
M: Yeah. And did you...how did you find schools back East compared to your...what you’d experienced in Texas?
L: Uh, it was college. I don’t know. I think looking back on it, probably the students there were better prepared, even with the quality kind of education that we got. Looking back on it, I think...
M: Yeah, because you had a really rare education, I think.
L: It was...[inaudible]. I don’t know why I said that they were different, you know. Maybe they were. You see, they would have had – and looking back, now, this is only... their teachers and all would have been in school systems of Virginia, particularly Virginia, and coming from the East... M: Uh-huh.
L: And they were, I don’t know, maybe...
M: ...[inaudible].
L: A mystique; I don’t know. But I loved Hampton. When I was at Hampton and when I think about it, when I think of Hampton, that would be when I – the first tree; I had never seen trees. But the campus was just absolutely beautiful. And the history, you know, of that school and, again, the... at Hampton it would have been called something else. On Sunday evening, what...the history of Hampton, the founder of it was white, something...a kind of military kind of person and it still had that...
M: Un-huh. Military feel. Ira Verdell Lott 27
L: Well, you didn’t have to march and all that business.
M: Yeah.
L: But still there were things about it that – like you were expected to be in chapel, you know, on Sunday mornings, dressed, in a certain place. And there would be preachers of renown in the black community. In the evening, oh, you dressed, you know - tie and everything else, for Sunday at lunch time. And then at night, there again there would be speakers or artists, you know; these performances, very similar, you know...
M: Uh-huh.
L: To what...
M: You’d experienced here.
L: What we had experienced there. And the...one of the things, too, that I’ve... I remember from the history, that many of the students at Hampton would come there - the teachers, the curriculum was... They knew that many of the students had been accepted without having had the foundation for college preparation.
M: Um.
L: So there was a core...there was a curriculum...
M: Uh-huh.
L: Which appreciated that...
M: Um.
L: ...that group, you know, of students. And so that there Ira Verdell Lott 28
were classes, you know, for them.
M: Uh-huh.
L: It was looked at at face value; I mean, it wasn’t, you know, just...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know what I mean?
M: Yeah.
L: I don’t know what I mean.
M: Yes. It was remediation work...
L: Yes. Now, look...
M: Yeah.
L: This is what we’re dealing with.
M: Yeah.
L: The fact of the matter is, you’ve got to catch up on this.
M: Yeah, yeah.
L: You know. So that’s...
M: It wasn’t denied; it wasn’t shoved under the carpet.
L: It wasn’t denied; it was in the curriculum.
M: Yeah.
L: It wasn’t looked...I don’t think that it was looked at as denigrating. You know.
M: Yeah.
L: Something else that I’ve realized, just in recent years, that Hampton – again I don’t know what the religious Ira Verdell Lott 29
thing about it - but the majority of my teachers, it was a mixed faculty in early years. The faculty members had been L: missionaries from New England, you know. They’d come down.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But the majority of my instructors when I was there were Jewish immigrants. I just learned that within the last few months - that these would have been professors who are Jewish people who had either left...
M: As a result of World War II?
L: Not after it – well, yes, after it or even before it.
M: Yeah.
L: Who couldn’t, I don’t think, get on faculties at white universities. But they...
M: Uh-huh.
L: And I read this, that it was not only at Hampton but that the Jewish...
M: Uh-huh.
L: These people, they were able to get...
M: ...on at black colleges?.
L: Black colleges, throughout the South.
M: Um.
L: That when I think back to it, they were Jewish immigrants. And in reading about them, that they were kind of caught in between, because they had come out of a Ira Verdell Lott 30
segregated kind of thing...
M: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
L: But they were in the South and they weren’t really
L: accepted in the...you know...
M: Uh-huh.
L: In the white...
M: ...community.
L: Community. They were in-between. It’s an interesting...
M: Marginal people.
L: Marginal. Yeah. And so, I don’t know, so...
M: Did you graduate from Hampton then?
L: No. I...the main thing, when I was at Hampton was when the Brown and...the desegregation, the Brown...
M: Yeah. I don’t remember. I can’t...
L: Versus schools and all that.
M: Yeah.
L: So I...then I transferred to the University of Texas. That’s when I...when I was at Hampton.
M: Uh-huh.
L: In fact, I was very happy there and everything. But that was when I became Roman Catholic, which in turn, you know, in my life...
M: Okay.
L: That my formal religion, you know, is basically United Ira Verdell Lott 31
Methodist. But when I was at Hampton I began to read, you know, about religion. And I found... And many times people say, “Why did, you become Catholic?” and all that? I began to read of history, about religion. And I attended some of L: the Methodist Churches, but the atmosphere, the way that the sermons...the way the things were carried out wasn’t what I had known. It was a different...
M: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
L: Different. And that began to put some questions in my mind.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, if...about the...why is it so different?
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know. And I began to...and I had a roommate who was, who had been taking instructions in the Catholic Church, and he had a catechism book there – and I began to read his, you know, his catechism book. And probably, looking back on it, but just intellectually, I was searching for something.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, whether it was religion or not.
M: Uh-huh.
L: I don’t know, looking back on it, I...and I’ve often wondered, you know, whether or not I would have become a Communist. I was reading social history and that type Ira Verdell Lott 32
thing, but the whole movement, you know, of Communism. It was...but that never came up.
M: ...[inaudible] black list – House Un-American ... [inaudible]...1951...[inaudible].
L: That’s what I mean.
M: Yeah. ...[inaudible].
L: But I was reading. There was some book, I can’t remember, I began to read – certainly about socialism, and the notion of helping people, and the unity...
M: Uh-huh.
L: The unity of people intrigued me. And that was very fascinating to me. So that, the whole McCarthy thing...
M: Uh-huh.
L: That was a white people’s thing.
M: Yeah.
L: That was all right. You know what I mean? It was a white... And, as a matter of fact, while I...it was a white thing, and when we were... I remember being in one of the classrooms once, when the McCarthy hearings...
M: Yeah.
L: And to this day I can remember that last one when the General Counsel said, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” You know what I mean? That was...
M: Yeah.
L: But it was clearly – it was a white people thing. I Ira Verdell Lott 33
really didn’t understand what all that was about.
M: Was about.
L: I didn’t, you know, comparing what that was all about in terms of what I was reading...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, about socialism.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, particularly socialism, that that...and the whole unity of people and all that thing, and for some reason or another it took a path into...
M: The church.
L: The church.
M: Well, when you...
L: And I...
M: When you came back, then, your first experience of an integrated setting would have been at the University of Texas then?
L: Yes. Uh-huh.
M: So that you were at Hampton for two years and then you came back to the University of Texas. And did you enter the church at that time?
L: No. I became Catholic when I was in Virginia.
M: Okay.
L: I became Catholic.
M: Then you came back to Austin to school. Ira Verdell Lott 34
L: To the university.
M: And what did you major in there?
L: In architecture.
M: You continued in architecture there, and then you graduated in architecture?
L: In there, from there. But I was not as happy. That’s another thing. Social life! This is while I was there, and L: when I look back on to it, and I have not in my own head, you know, resolved it. But even while I was there, I used to always say if I had a daughter I would not let her go there. Because there was, you know, that there was more to going to school and getting an education than just going to class. And that’s all that I was able to do.
M: So there was no social life for you?
L: Not really. No. No, not really. But I did...I got to know some students from Tillotson or Sam Houston, but we really didn’t have anything in common.
M: Well, you’ve got to be one of the first black students at the University of Texas.
L: Yeah. My thing was an accident. It was...how did I get? And that’s...
M: Yeah.
L: I think it was an accident. It was a legal – both legal cases were still going on. The graduates – the law school had been open and they were fighting, fighting, Ira Verdell Lott 35
fighting for undergraduates.
M: Uh-huh.
L: To get undergraduate students.
M: Yeah.
L: And the legislature and the courts and everything were using all kinds of arguments and saying that if there was an undergraduate school provided, you know – separate, but equal – they did not have the responsibility to accept...
M: Accept those students.
L: Accept the undergraduate students. So they went into court, and this type of thing, and they...finally something happened in court, the ruling, where they had to accept, you know, students if they didn’t have the departments. Well, they didn’t have, as well as I can remember, an architecture school.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And the...they didn’t have the architecture school. Oh, then the Regent, or someone, said, “But we will not accept”. They didn’t have to accept students right out of high school – some way or another that way.
M: Okay.
L: That...and so my brother, Virgil, who’d graduated by that time from the law school...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...said, “Why don’t you apply to the University of Ira Verdell Lott 36
Texas?” And at that time the tuition - I like to tell this - the tuition was twenty-five dollars for a state resident. Whereas the tuition, I think, at Hampton was something like, in those days, eight or a thousand dollars, you see, and then we have transportation and all of that.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so, you know, I said, “Well, what am I going...” You know in those days you didn’t resist...
M: Yeah.
L: Not the way you would have. And then, too, I had to see that the architecture, in terms of the department and all of that being recognized, you know.
M: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
L: I think recognized much more than Hampton.
M: Uh-huh.
L: Probably in terms of accreditation and all of that.
M: Yeah.
L: And when I...
M: Keep going.
L: I just...I didn’t realize, you know, when I started there...
M: Uh-huh.
L: I didn’t realize that some of the stress and the tension of being at a large university...
M: Oh, it would have been much larger too.Ira Verdell Lott 37
L: Oh, it was a huge...
M: Yeah, compared to the size...
L: It was nothing like in a small college.
M: And you had no social life at all.
L: No social life, none, none, none, none, none.
M: Yeah.
L: None. It was just...
M: And how did your parents feel about the religious change?
L: Uh, the only brother that I hurt, my mother – that’s
L: important. As a Methodist, my group of Methodists, we had always been taught that at a certain point in your life ...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You had to make a choice, you know. Now looking back on it, that was never the idea of choosing not to have anything. You know. It was you made a choice between...
M: X or Y.
L: X or Y.
M: Yeah.
L: It was kind of funny.
M: I remember that.
L: Yeah, there was no idea of, but... So when I made that choice...that was no...what I do know, that the spirituality that we were taught, of tolerance – that was one of the Ira Verdell Lott 38
things in terms of the Methodists, you know, of just tolerant of different people, you know - different religions, that’s what I always remember. And that you had to make a choice. The only person who, my mother told me, raised kind of something, but never to me, was my brother the lawyer.
M: Uh-huh. Virgil.
L: Virgil. On the other hand, he was the one, when I went into the seminary, who, you know, drove me, took me to the seminary and would come to visit with me and, you know, it was a kind of mixed kind of thing.
M: Let’s end...
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2.THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: Segregation in Austin and the Priesthood INTERVIEW WITH: Ira Verdell Lott (Tape 2 of 2)
DATE: 17 May 2001
PLACE: 210 King William, S.A., TX
INTERVIEWER: Sarah Massey
TAPE 2, SIDE 1
M: Okay, this is tape 2, side 1, and I’m Sarah Massey, talking with Ira Verdell Lott. And he has just graduated from college, at the University of Texas, in Architect school, and we’ll continue from there.
L: Um. Well...
M: Yeah.
L: Well, it wasn’t that, you see, when you say that he has just graduated. If it had only been that...
M: Easy.
L: ...been that easy. You know. That, that...
M: What did you do after graduation?
L: Well, that was the... I went to work for – oh, two years maybe three years – with a firm...maybe two years. Well, I would do drawings, you know, work with my family. My brother – my father had died...
M: Okay.
L: My brothers were still running the lumber company, and real estate and that type of thing. John Chase, who was theIra Verdell Lott 2
architect, had moved on to Houston. So I would do drawings, L: you know, for them. And then more and more, more and more I was with an architect’s firm, Frank DeGroot. And...
M: Spell that.
L: DeGroot. It’s - Frank was his first name, D-e- capital D-e – capital G-r-o-o-t. Frank DeGroot.
M: Okay.
L: And I was with him and, you know, and just living a life.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But to back up just one bit.
M: Okay.
L: I had become Roman Catholic...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...when I left Hampton.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And during the time that I was at the university, when I became Roman Catholic, the priest who gave us instructions told us, you know, that becoming a Roman Catholic, you know, is an easy kind of thing. But you will have to continue reading, if you want to know more about Roman Catholicism – not only practicing it but reading more about it. It’s history and that type thing. And so I took that very, very seriously. So I was doing architecture. But as far as stabilizing the thing for me, it was the going to church.Ira Verdell Lott 3
M: Church.
L: And that was a kind of a...well, I get a kick out of
L: this part, too, because when you would...when you... I lived at home and then in order to get a parking place on Guadalupe Street, on the drag, or any place near the architecture department, you had to go very early to get a parking place. Well, when you’d come early, you couldn’t get into the buildings. You know, they hadn’t been opened. So the only thing to do, for me, that I thought, well, St. Austin’s Church was right there, so I just became a daily participant, communicant – you know going to...
M: ...to church.
L: To church. So when I think about it, you know, my Catholicism is based upon getting a parking space.
M: Getting a parking space. I love it, I love it, I love it.
L: Well wasn’t that practical? But I took it very, very seriously at that time. I took it...but that is what you’d do: you’d just go get a parking place and go to church. And so I would always do that.
M: Why did you become an Oblate Father? So I could get a parking space.
L: Parking space.
M: So, well, I would get the parking space in front of the church, go to church and... But as I really, you know, was Ira Verdell Lott 4
reading more and more, you know, about the church and became more and more involved, began to think that I was happier doing that...
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, which was the reading and participating and all that, than I was in the architecture thing.
M: Uh-huh.
L: So I began to think about...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...the priesthood. You know. But it was in the middle of this architecture, you know.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so when I... Even then, I thought about it and spoke to a priest, and that particular priest who I talked to, you know. He said, “Well, continue your reading.” He didn’t seem, you know, that, you know...
M: ...Excited about it.
L: Didn’t follow up on it. And I said, “Well, maybe it’s not, you know, that important.”
M: Yeah.
L: And so that even academically, you know, you were just right in the middle of the architecture thing...
M: Uh-huh.
L: It was a feeling of being out in the middle of something and turning around and going back.Ira Verdell Lott 5
M: Well, were you dating anybody at this time? Did you have any girl friends?
L: Off and on. Yes, when I had the time. I was studying so hard.
M: Uh-huh.
L: I think the girl who I had being seeing, and who had gone to Hampton, we had kind of drifted apart. And then there were about two others girls who I dated...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...during that time. And...but I was...that dealing with architecture really didn’t leave time for just...
M: Yeah.
L: ...really getting involved in it. But yeah, I did for a while and then not...not up...and then even kind of just a little bit after, yeah, after, well, after I had approached the priest, you know, about going, and was really thinking about it, then I would cut off the dating and everything. And by the time I did finish, you know, I wasn’t really thinking – finished architecture – I wasn’t thinking of, you know, about the priesthood anymore.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know. And then I would...I picked up for that period of time when I was working. And so life was just...
M: Well, then, what made the final decision for you to join the priesthood?Ira Verdell Lott 6
L: I wasn’t happy doing what I was doing. It was just that simple. I was just going...you know, you’d get up and you’d go to work and you’d... The other thing that, when I think back to it, the getting through the architecture...
M: This is the degree, the last two years at Texas.
L: That thing, it was like it didn’t mean anything; it was like a burnout. It was sort of like...
M: You were so alienated from everybody.
L: I guess; I don’t know. But it didn’t...I wasn’t...it just didn’t mean anything. It was...so you would work...
M: Yeah.
L: ...get your check, you’d go back and then, socially, now that you mention it, in terms of alienated. I really wasn’t into anything.
M: Yeah.
L: But I just wasn’t happy. And I was only...I guess I was twenty, twenty-four, maybe twenty-five when I graduated.
M: From the...
L: Yeah, from the...from architecture, from the university. And...but I just wasn’t happy. And...
M: Okay, so then when you decided to do the priesthood, what happened then?
L: Well, the priest who I...I had a cousin, my cousin...[ name?], who had become Roman Catholic, and I was talking with her and she said, “I know a priest down at this other Ira Verdell Lott 7
church. Why don’t you go and talk with him?” And I went and talked to this priest who was with the Oblates. I didn’t know anything about the Oblates. I didn’t know the difference between order – you know what was the mission, or what – you and I have talked about a secular priest and an order priest...
M: Uh-huh.
L: And if it had been a secular priest I would have gone there. But he followed up,...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...you know. And, you know, with, you know, talking with me. Made an appointment here to see someone in San Antonio. And...
M: So then did you go...what does it involve, becoming a priest? Do you go back to school?
L: ...for some parts of it. Now, like, there was a period when I came here...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...into San Antonio. And then for a year of kind of transition, living – living the life – and I was taking classes of...started taking my Spanish and then some theology, other classes at St. Mary’s.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But living, you know...
M: ...with the Oblate Fathers.Ira Verdell Lott 8
L: With the, yeah, with a...with a group of other guys who were coming.
M: Uh-huh.
L: What we would call delayed vocations.
M: Uh-huh.
L: That meant these were men who...well, like...
M: ...were older.
L: Older.
M: Yeah.
L: And they hadn’t gone through their high school and all of that. The...there were those of us, and we were taking classes and living that kind of life.
M: And were there any blacks with you at this point?
L: No, no.
M: You were the only one?
L: That was another thing, yeah, that’s...and that, I brought that up to the person who I talked with, and he told me something which kind of fit in. I said, did he think that my being a black would present a problem? And he said, “Ira, it will be a problem for you if you make it one.” And I took that very seriously. I didn’t give it another... well, you know, as time went on, I...that really didn’t have ...and until, you see, like, it was funny but when I became Catholic, when I became Roman Catholic, I was perfectly aware of the racism within the Catholic Church.Ira Verdell Lott 9
M: Catholic Church.
L: It didn’t make any difference to me. It didn’t make any difference to me. It was completely...it was an intellectual, you know, understanding of history and all that kind of thing.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so that didn’t make any difference. I don’t know
what I would have done if he had said that it might; he
L: wouldn’t have even talked to me, I think, when I asked him.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, Father Blackburn. And he said it will become a problem for you if you make it one.
M: And then, so how long...how long before you took your vows?
L: Oh, that would have been...and because I was a convert, we decided to just go the whole thing. That would have been seven years.
M: Seven years.
L: Four – three years, well, one...no wait, yeah, we had what we call a novitiate, when we went down to Mission, Texas.
M: Yeah.
L: ...[inaudible] a year of prayer and all.
M: Yeah.Ira Verdell Lott 10
L: And then you do three years of philosophy, and then the four years of...well, three of heavy theology, of theology for three years. And then there’s a year of pastoral, you
know,
M: Yeah.
L: ...where you take – very different today. That was what I did.
M: Yeah.
L: Some people...see, if I had been Catholic, you know,
L: born Catholic, and had had...been in Catholic schools, right along...
M: Yeah.
L: ...I might not have had to do that; I don’t know.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But we just worked that up, and it wasn’t...and in those days...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...different from today...the...and it, yeah, I think it might be different; I haven’t lived in the seminary setting, but you had a...had a closed community.
M: Uh-huh.
L: It was a world set apart.
M: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
L: So it was...the time just kind of went by, you know. You went to class and...Ira Verdell Lott 11
M: Yeah.
L: ...and you just lived that life. And it didn’t seem that long for me.
M: I seem to remember you talking about your mother trying to find a place to stay.
L: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a huge thing at the very beginning.
M: That would have been in the ‘60s, too, wouldn’t it?
L: Uh, ’61.
M: Yeah.
L: Down in...I didn’t know I had mentioned that to you. That was...I was in what we call the novitiate in Mission, Texas. That was a year of prayer and reflection and kind of a boot camp in those days. It’s not like that today - much more humane, I think. In those days, it was just a terrible ...[inaudible]. But at the end, you know, normally, the... well, always the parents would come...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...you know, to hear you make your first vows. And I hadn’t given it a thought, you know – this was in Mission...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...you know, right in...I don’t know why I didn’t, and then one night at the dinner table, the priest in charge called me to the table - he wasn’t the head person; the head person was from Chicago and he was away. But this French Ira Verdell Lott 12
priest who was in charge called me, “Brother, come over... come to, come here.” And he says, “Where do your people plan to live when they come here?” And I said, “Well, whenever we come this far we always live...go into Mexico.
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...and just stay on other side of the border. And so he was an old French priest, one of the early, “Well, it’s okay, okay; we will see.” And then when Father Master came, this other priest told him. And then I was called in and asked, “What did I mean that...what did it mean that my people would stay? They would stay on this side you know with, you know, wherever.” And I said, “Well, Father, you know what I mean.” He was complete oblivious; I mean, this ...
M: Uh-huh.
L: It’s an interesting kind of thing.
M: Yeah.
L: ...because he was from Chicago, had spent all of his life, you know, in the seminary and everything, but was totally, completely oblivious to segregation law, and that...that would have...and would have presented a problem. And so I said...he said, “They will stay on this side of the border. They will stay right here in McAllen, you know.” And so I...and so, he said you write and tell them that they will stay on this side of the border.” So I wrote the Ira Verdell Lott 13
letter, and in those days you didn’t seal the letter in case the Master wanted to look at it. So he opened it...he looked in it and saw where I...I wrote, I said, “Dear Mama, They, you know, I am to write to tell you that you’re to stay on this side of the border.” But, I forget, I said, “I wouldn’t plan on that. I would still plan on staying...” And so when he read that, he hit the...
M: ...Roof.
L: “Oh, Brother,” he yelled down the...”Come here immediately.” And so, “What do you mean telling your mother to check with your brother...” You know, Virgil, who had taken me down there where he had stayed. And so, “You tell
L: her that they will...” And so, you know, and so I wrote it. The next morning, he got into the car – let me see, it was...he was going to town to all of his friends... “You will stay...I have friends...,”
M: Yeah.
L: “...in McAllen and here, and you will find the...you know, Brother.” And so the Brothers, they always said, “Brother Ira, we don’t know what’s going to happen, you know, said...” And I said, “Well, he is in for a big learning; it is against the law...”
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...for whites and blacks...” That wasn’t, you know, what of it. So they said, “But he’s got friends.” I said, Ira Verdell Lott 14
“Well, he’s going to find out, you know.” I said, “You wait.” And so, sure enough, on this hot day, the car was coming across the prairie - you could see the dust - and he came in and began to ring the...
M: ...the bell.
L: ...the bell, you know, the community call, everybody to, you know, in...that he had been in to town and that everyone was to write to their parents and tell them that if they had made arrangements to stay, you know, in any of these, you know, these establishments, that they were to cancel their...
M: ...and go across the border.
L: And...I didn’t know that he was going to find, you
L: know, that he was going to his social friends; he had gone to the public places and then he went to these people that he’d had dinner with, and everybody, and they told him, “Father, there’s just no way, you know, that we can, you know, let black people come into our home. You know that...”
M: Yeah.
L: And these were his friends. He was crushed, crushed, crushed. But he was determined, you know, that he would find a place. And so I...on the day of the ceremony, you know, for making our vows, you know I...there was my mother and my sister and my brother and it was a hot summer day. Ira Verdell Lott 15
And I didn’t know, you know, what had happened, what had happened. And so, when I saw my mother I said, “Where, you know, where are you all staying? Where’s everybody staying? And he had called them – the Father Master had gotten in touch with them, and told them to meet him, you know, at a certain intersection. You know, all of the people who would come and whatever time they would get there, to call and that he had made arrangements at the...at our...there was a Mission...at the Mission San Juan – for all of the parents, you know, to... So, you know, my mother, they...my mother fell in love with him, you know, and my sister thought Father Matthew, but he was so gracious. And then my mother had never been to a retreat house.
M: Yeah.
L: Or that type thing. And she went into the Mission - to the church, you know, with the candles.
M: Yeah.
L: And it was nice and peaceful and quiet, and she just enjoyed – it was just a wonderful, wonderful thing for her. And the people – and by it being a Mission type thing – when they got ready to leave, they were there a day or two days, they would come over for the ceremonies that we had. And then when they got ready to leave, they were asking, you know, what is the bill? You know. And they said, “Oh well, you don’t...Father Matthew, you know, he’s taking care, you Ira Verdell Lott 16
know, of everything.” So it was just, you know, one of those important kind of days – very tension filled.
M: Well, did you find, during those years, any other blacks at all in the priesthood?
L: No. No. That’s a...no, and how did I... so that while I was in the seminary, again, whether I was at the university, or when I was in the seminary, I did form some close friends - maybe three or four people...
M: Okay.
L: ...that we would kind of hang together. The other Brothers...
M: No?
L: There was, no, they had other interests.
M: Yeah.
L: And I never...I never had any open animosity to me.
L: Somebody asked me that - one of the priests. And I hadn’t been ordained. And he asked me about it: did I find that they were more enlightened than the other?
M: Um.
L: And just from conversation, and whatever, I...it was... was no huge threat to them.
M: Yeah.
L: ...you know, I was by myself - that was how I would put it together.
M: Yeah, okay, okay.Ira Verdell Lott 17
L: If I had been Mexican-American, you see, there were... where, there were...
M: Large numbers.
L: Large numbers, then, perhaps, I would have been a threat.
M: Yeah.
L: I was surprised, and when I think about...with regard...when I went to the seminary, these would have been before the Roman Catholic – before Vatican II.
M: Yeah.
L: Vatican II was announced in 1961. That was when I was in...at the novitiate; that’s a huge a change.
M: Um.
L: But I was very surprised, let me see, that the majority of the students, and even the faculty, were totally ignorant, as far as social awareness. So that their
L: world...
M: ...was totally different.
L: Was totally, totally different.
M: Yeah.
L: Now that having been said, it was a funny kind of thing. Like one of the rectors, Father Kipas, you know, brilliant theologian and everything, and he would, when all the civil rights thing was going on, you know, he would, “Brother, come, you know, what am I supposed to think about Ira Verdell Lott 18
this?” You know – as far as the social justice...
M: Yeah, the social justice issues.
L: The social issue.
M: Yeah.
L: Where...and so when Archbishop Lucey, here, you see – I think it was here – he integrated the schools, just like that. All Catholic schools will be integrated, you see. Well, this was just completely different from anything that the Fathers had known, you know.
M: Yeah.
L: But Father Kipas, when it was time for voting or there was something, he would say, “Father Lott, come here; tell me, what am I supposed to...?” And then, we’d...and then I would tell him that. The other thing that I like to...there was one – a professor, Father Decker, who – he was the only one who kind of made an effort, you know, in his class to relate the theology to social issues. He was the only one L: who made a serious effort to talk about human sexuality, you know. He would talk about that. He was the only one who would. Somewhere or other he got free tickets to the San Antonio Symphony, you know, and all the Brothers who wanted to go, you know...
M: Sounds like he was the only one that had any touch with reality.
L: Well, and he would...took us to some union... Ira Verdell Lott 19
M: Yeah.
L: But leading up to something.
M: Yeah.
L: Leading up to something about how different...and even with him, you see...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...you see, that, yeah, that he was making these efforts, you know, about church architecture, and we would talk about the buildings. But we...in the summer, the whole the community would close down here in San Antonio, and we would all, we would move to Port Lavaca.
M: Uh-huh.
L: Where there’s...
M: Yeah.
L: ...ad spend the summer there. And this one summer – and I don’t know why this had never happened, I’ve been trying to think of how, when it happened – but we would all go on the bus, and there was a mid-point, you know, where we L: would stop...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...for some reason. Well, this particular summer, Father Decker, said, “Brother Lott, why don’t you ride with me in the car and we will go down...” and I guess we went down to open it up...
M: Uh-huh.Ira Verdell Lott 20
L: ...you know, for everybody else. So when we get to mid-point between someplace, this little town, he said, “Brother, you will stop now, and we’ll have, uh, uh, lunch, you know – go into the restaurant. And so I said, “Father, they’re not going to serve me, you know.” And he said, “What are you talking about?” He didn’t know, even with, you know, that his world was that...you know, that the law just didn’t permit that.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so – no, wait, I don’t know if I told him – I knew myself. He said, “We will go in.” And I, I’ve done this a number of times, even at the University of Texas when I was there. Sometimes we would go as a class field trip.
M: Uh-huh.
L: The faculty person, you know, all of a sudden...I used to tell my mother, you know, we’ve got to stop for coffee. You know what I mean. That was always. My mother said, “White people drink so much coffee.” And so my mother would say, “White people and that coffee – we’re going to stop for L: coffee.” But any rate, we would stop, you know. So we’d go into the restaurant and the young lady came up and she said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not able to serve you.” And Father Decker said, “What are you talking about? What do you mean?” So she said, “Well, we can’t serve colored people, you know.” And he said, “Well, oh, well, we’ll just Ira Verdell Lott 21
take our business elsewhere.” So we get into the car and I was kind of wondering, where in the hell does he think...
M: He’s been?
L: He’s been? You know, all this time. So he said, “Brother, can you think?” I said, “let’s go over to the Dairy Queen and get a...”
M: Yeah.
L: Thing. When we get to Port Lavaca, and then at the end of the summer...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...when I was coming back on the bus, Father Decker gave instructions to the Brother who was driving the bus that they were not to stop at that place. You know, because they...
M: ...[inaudible].
L: The segregation. Well, the Brothers, they didn’t know. “Why can’t we stop?”
M: Why can’t we stop?
L: You know. So the driver of – Dooley, Brother Dooley came back, you know, and he said, “Ira,” - he was another... L: he was an older person.
M: Yeah.
L: Like myself, had been a delayed vocation and hadn’t lived in that kind of world. He said, “Ira, you know, we have a problem.” You know. He said, “Father Decker has Ira Verdell Lott 22
told us, you know, not to stop or not to go... What...help me, you know, on this. The Brothers, you know, are giving me, you know, problems. And I said, “Look, stop, go in...”
M: Yeah.
L: “Eat your dinner,” you know. And so, I said, “I’ll take care of myself.” I said...he said, “Well, what are you going to do?” So one of the other guys, who was a friend of mine, you know, and I had told him, you know, what was going on. And so he and I went, you know, went to one of the Dairy Queens.
M: Yeah, yeah.
L: Now, that kind of thing was, you know, they stand out – those two incidents – they stand out in my mind. But I... for the time, you know, that I was with, you know, the Oblates, there was always a very open kind of thing, and I don’t have, you know... Now when I would get with...they didn’t, you know, in terms of...I wasn’t aware of. I remember after I was ordained, and we were spending that one year – we spent one year there – this was the time that there was riots in Detroit. And it was the first time that black priests, there were only in that time in the – this would have been in late ‘60s – at that time there were about maybe seventy or eighty black priests.
M: In the whole United States?
L: In the whole of the United States.Ira Verdell Lott 23
M: That were in the Oblates?
L: No, there were none in the Oblates.
M: None in the Oblates.
L: None in the Oblates in this country. There was...there was not...
M: So you’re saying you’re the only black Oblate priest?
L: In this country.
M: In this country.
L: In this country. But there were, you know. there were...
M: In other orders?
L: No, oh, in Africa, in...
M: Okay.
L: Many, many of the Oblates, as a matter of fact, in Africa, the majority, but, no.
M: Okay, let’s stop.
L: Okay.
END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 1.
SIDE 2.
L: ...kind of the, oh...
M: This is Sarah, get started here. This is tape 2, side 2. Sarah Massey, talking with Ira Lott. He’s discussing
L: being the only black in the Oblate priesthood in the United States. Okay, do you want to continue?
L: Uh, as I was saying, this...and so in the late ‘60s Ira Verdell Lott 24
there was a first meeting of black priests of any order - secular or anything - that had ever taken place. And it was to take place in Detroit. Detroit had just burned. They’d had the riots and all that kind of thing. So I asked permission, you know, to attend this. And I was given permission, which was a very unusual kind of thing. You know, this wasn’t something that you do all the time. And at that meeting the significant thing that we discovered...
M: How many were there?
L: There would have been like seventy. As well as I remember.
M: Okay.
L: That we met. And what we discovered – now, I had just been ordained – but of all of the priests who had been ordained, none of them had been put into positions of being pastor. They were all in academia or in administration. So this was very significant. In other words, as a priest, you know, you wanted to be a pastor.
M: Helping the people.
L: Well, not helping; well, either helping the...that’s part of it, but in terms of, career-wise, you move into the career of authority by becoming a pastor of...
M: The hierarchy of a position...
L: A position.
M: In the priesthood.Ira Verdell Lott 25
L: Is to be...
M: Is through a pastorate.
L: Is through a pastorate.
M: And the seventy of you were not.
L: None. Were not.
M: None of you.
L: Nobody. Now there was one priest who – that I can recall – or if they were they were assistants. You see, none...now maybe Larry Lucas in Chicago, but at least that was the what...
M: Uh-huh.
L: We presented. That was the image.
M: Uh-huh.
L: That was presented. Now there was a Bishop Perry, but he was an Auxiliary kind of a bishop, even in that position he wasn’t really on...
M: ...in the hierarchy, on the track.
L: On the track. That was the image...
M: Yeah.
L: ...that we... So, of course, the big thing that came up was a statement, you know, to come from this...
M: ...group.
L: Group. And the leaders, the leaders in this were from New York - Larry Lucas, fiery, click, click, click, they
L: were the sharp ones. Larry had been challenged by Ira Verdell Lott 26
Malcomb X out on the street in Harlem, you know, about what are you doing for the community?
M: The people, yeah.
L: What are you doing, you know, as a...
M: A black priest.
L: Yes. Malcomb saw Larry Lucas and he told him – was he out of his mind? You have to be crazy. You know it was – oh, it was so...he told all this. And so we came up with this huge...this statement which started off, the first of the thing, was that the American Roman Catholic Church was primarily a racist institution. So that was a huge, you know, kind of thing.
M: Yeah.
L: For these reasons.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so what we...then we decided, at that time, that we would, you know, approach our superiors and, as best we could, place ourselves – you know, aside from being a pastor - but to place ourselves in as conspicuous a position as possible. Whether...if you were in teaching, teach black. You know what I mean? It didn’t make any difference...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...you know, wherever you were but put yourself in the black community and, you know, as a kind of gesture that would be...Ira Verdell Lott 27
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...what we would do. And so we kind of fanned out. The group was called The Black Clergy Catholic – Black Clergy Caucus. Fanned out, you know, all around and approached bishops, and superiors in our case. So that was – and about that time I was getting my...or maybe, before it was...it kind of blends.
M: Uh-huh.
L: It kind of came in together. I had started in chaplaincy work.
M: Uh-huh.
L: At Santa Rosa, here in San Antonio.
M: Uh-huh.
L: As part of the training, clinical pastoral training.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And it was a conspicuous kind of...
M: Yeah, yeah.
L: ...public...
M: Yeah.
L: ...kind of thing.
M: Yeah.
L: And then it didn’t seem quite enough. There was an opening for training in mental health work.
M: Uh-huh.
L: In Washington.Ira Verdell Lott 28
M: Okay.
L: At St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. And I asked for permission, you know, to go for...
M: The training.
L: You know, that training. And for that year, you know, and came back, did you know some training or did some work at the mental hospital. And then a position at St. Elizabeth’s opened on the staff. And this was an opportunity for me to work with black – a majority, you know, mentally ill black patients and families and that type thing.
M: And were they poor?
L: Poor.
M: ...[inaudible].
L: Oh, yes, yes. St. Elizabeth’s is a – the public mental hospital – it’s the insane asylum. It used to be called the insane asylum for the poor in the District of Columbia. But there was a training program...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...there for priests who were coming in. So I presented to my, to my superiors, that this would be an opportunity for me to work with the poor people. But it’s also an opportunity for me to work with Catholic priests who haven’t had the experience of the training – of professional black people. Ira Verdell Lott 29
M: Uh-huh.
L: So I...that...I approached it...
M: Double.
L: Double...
M: ...[inaudible].
L: ...with a kind of thing like that.
M: So you, as a piece of that, besides in the mentally ill people, you did some training with other priests in this country who had not been exposed to professionals?
L: Yeah. Well...
M: ...[inaudible].
L: I was training them.
M: You were training?
L: I became...I joined the staff...
M: Okay.
L: ...as a trainer.
M: ...of other black priests?
L: No, no...
M: Other priests.
L: White – white priests.
M: Thank you.
L: White. It was, yes, that was the significance of that – that they were white, you see, and that they would...
M: Yeah. Yeah.
L: ...you know, we would have...we would interact with Ira Verdell Lott 30
each other. Today I was thinking about this because...and it’s kind of significant in terms of the students who I trained. I remember, I’ve had only one that I would call
L: difficult.
M: Reject?
L: Well, no.
M: Like...[inaudible].
L: No, but this priest, no, this priest – you know what I mean. I, for the year when I started out, you know, on the staff – this was a staff, not black] ... white priests.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And they knew what I was interested in and, so forth and so on, and we...I had one student who was of...he was Chinese, but had been raised in Hawaii. And different from any other priest whom I had worked with. There was no rapport and it was just a problem, you know, of how he was dealing with patients, and it was just a terrible, terrible kind of thing. And one day during our staff meeting, you know, I brought this up about his priest. And one of the guys said, “Do you think that there’s any racism? Is there a racial problem,” you know? And I said, “Oh, for crying out loud.” You know, that’s, you know, that’s ridiculous. You know that...I hadn’t had...you know, it just hadn’t...
M: Entered your...
L: ...entered my mind, you know, at all. Well, at the end Ira Verdell Lott 31
of the year, you know, when it came time for the evaluation, you know, I wrote, you know, the evaluation up and it was, you know, negative. It was what had happened and that type thing. And he, you know, had an opportunity to respond to
L: that and to meet, you know, with the training staff, you know, to get another opinion. You know, from the superiors – the director of the thing. So at that meeting – I don’t know if he said it - yeah, he must of said it there, and I don’t know if he put it in writing - but he said, “I think that maybe the problem that I’ve had with Father Lott is because he is of...he finds himself, you know, at the bottom of the, of the ladder. You know, that the racial, because of the racial thing, he sees himself at the bottom, you know, of the thing.” So when we had the...yeah it was in writing, you know, and he made his statement. And so I was telling him, I said, “You know, maybe, you know, that might have had something to do with it.” I said, “You see, because the mistake - if you were seeing me or thinking of me that way - I’ve never thought of myself at the bottom of anything.” Do you know...and this is myself perception.
M: Yeah.
L: You know, of who...
M: Yeah.
L: And kind of the way that I, you know, in terms of my work in the seminary, you know, and all that kind of thing.Ira Verdell Lott 32
M: In life.
L: In life. I have really never thought of myself as the bottom.
M: The bottom. Yeah.
L: I just hadn’t. And I’ve always thought of that. But
L: in terms of students - and it stays in my mind because I’ve never had any, you know, problem - and maybe I’ve been more alert to it as I...I was just starting in a sense, and maybe I became more comfortable in bringing up the racial kind of thing.
M: Yeah.
L: Out front, you know.
M: Yeah, because obviously...done with that guy.
L: Well, later...
M: You needed to be...
L: Well, after the...well, what we learned about him from other people – he went back to Hawaii and all that - and somewhere or another at one of the conferences or whatever, we learned...and he was an obsessive kind of person. He had other kinds of problems – but we learned that and this will sound very funny and all that – but that early, while he was in the seminary, he had been thrown off of a horse, or kicked, and had a metal plate and that had affected his brain, you know, in some kind of...and so that it accounted for the difficulties.Ira Verdell Lott 33
M: Some behavior...
L: His behavior – difficulties. We didn’t know that, you know, at the time. But he stands out in my mind, and I had a learning from it.
M: Yeah.
L: In terms of how people would see me. My work there,
L: and what I have found in terms of my assignments, you know - going to St. Elizabeth’s and all that – I’ve always taken – this is aside from the racism...
M: Yeah – oh, yeah, yeah.
L: But is aside from the racism. But generally I’ve always asked or told the superiors what I want. You know, I had to tell my students that. The students would come through and they would be kind of, whether oppressed...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...by their superiors. And you would...I would ask them, “Did you ever say to your superiors what your wishes are? What is it that you want to do? You know it’s not as an ultimatum.”
M: Uh-huh.
L: You see, but say, “This is what I want to do. And that’s what I’ve always attempted to do, you know with my...” and give a reason, you know.
M: Uh-huh.
L: What I wanted to do. And that was how I approached the Ira Verdell Lott 34
working in St. Elizabeth’s. And then after I was there for twenty-one, twenty-two years, and so I had gotten to a point of retirement...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...kind of thing. And looking back on it, I’m pretty sure I was burned-out. I mean...
M: Uh-huh.
L: After, you know... And aside from the working with the patients, what had happened - and it was kind of I think it’s, it’s kind of by accident...
M: Uh-huh.
L: I think about it by accident. See, when I went into chaplaincy, it was working with patients, and the training part was just an aside.
M: Yeah.
L: I always like having interns and...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...students, you know, around me. But as the years went by and the requirements – some of the training programs which we had, or the training program – became more and more attached to university and academic requirements. You see, which was something that I never had in mind. I never thought of myself as a teacher.
M: Or as a faculty member.
L: Or as a faculty member. Or of having to give somebody Ira Verdell Lott 35
something that would go...
M: On their transcripts.
L: On their transcript, account for them, you know, being ordained or not ordained.
M: Um.
L: But that kind of snuck up on me. I was always very, very involved with the professional groups. I enjoyed that very much. Of, you know, going to the meetings and acting
L: on committees and that type thing. And I’m kind of proud because I was on the board of the chaplaincies for the professional organization of, in working on standards and that type of thing, as the years went by. But I really...I ...but the thing of going up the ladder and because of the architecture thing...
M: Uh-huh.
L: I always took the...it was very, very important to me of on-going education – you know, continuing, you know, my professional...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...education.
M: Uh-huh.
L: So I was just constantly, you know - I took classes, you know, and things at Georgetown and all that kind of thing. And but never really thought of myself...so I moved up, up, up, up the ladder in terms of supervisory status, Ira Verdell Lott 36
M: Yeah.
L: ...And that responsibility of trainer.
M: Uh-huh.
L: And so that after twenty-two years...
M: Go ahead.
L: After twenty-two years or so - and then there was a time for, for...I’d reached, as far as the government was concerned, the retirement age.
M: Um.
L: There was a possibility of retiring. And so then I deserved a kind of sabbatical, you know, to do...which is...
M: Uh-huh.
L: What I was doing, started doing and what I wanted to do was, you know, I was taking classes – took some Spanish, took some different kind of classes working on the family history kind of thing. And the sabbatical just sort of stretched out and stretched out. It stretched out ...[inaudible]. Then the other was trying to...and I haven’t been...afterwards done, like coming to a point of seeing myself in the parish, you know, working. See, I was never...I was always a chaplain.
M: Yes, yes.
L: Do you see?
M: Yeah.
L: So the...at a certain point in...as a priest, you know, Ira Verdell Lott 37
you’re either in a parish...
M: Yeah.
L: ...Or you’re, whatever.
M: Yeah.
L: You know, a chaplain...
M: Yeah.
L: You know, type thing. And at first I thought I would see myself as...you know, I said well, I’ll go - maybe a retreat master or something...
M: Yeah.
L: ...in counseling.
M: Yeah.
L: ...Which I’d, you know, taken courses in and...
M: Yeah.
L: ...Certificates and all that thing in counseling. And then just the sabbatical just sort of stretched out and out. M: So how do you see yourself now? Do you see yourself as a priest? A retired priest? Or as a...just a man of the world?
L: Kind of all of that, I guess. And right now I’m a priest. I met – I hadn’t told you this – the...Father Garcia, when I went over to accept the award...
M: Oh, the Fehrenbach Award?
L: The Fehrenbach. He was there – he’s the pastor at the cathedral.Ira Verdell Lott 38
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, where I go...
M: Yeah.
L: ...go to mass. And...
M: At San Fernando.
L: At San Fernando. Uh-huh. That’s where I like to go there. And so I saw him and I said, hello, you know. And he, “Ira, what are you...? I said, “You know, you’re my pastor now.” You know. He said, what do you mean? And I said, “I’ve come to all of your ceremonies, that I was able
L: to compliment him, you know, on his liturgies and the...”
M: Homilies.
L: Homilies.
M: Yeah.
L: And how he involves the people. He said, “You what?” I said, I’m right there. I saw the crucifixion, you know, at Easter time.” And I said, “Really, it brought me to tears,” I said, “it was so well done.” I said, “I haven’t seen anything like that in this country. Since I was in Africa.”
M: Yeah.
L: And I said, “I love, you know, your sermons and...” So I was able to give him some honest... He said, “You know, I really appreciate that. Well, why don’t you help me out?” Ira Verdell Lott 39
I said, “Look, you’ve gone too far.” You know what I mean. I said, “I’m not, at this point...” And he said, “Well, we’ll talk about it.” But I – so I see - at the present time I’m inactive. You know, I don’t have those responsibilities. I’ve been...when I reflect on it I’ve often wondered whether or not – and I haven’t read anything about this – that it is possible for someone to have a, what we call a vocation for a period of time. You know, that there is a period of time that you are called to be that, and then...
M: It’s over.
L: It’s over. You know, because – and it’s interesting
L: – when I go...I love to go to San Fernando, because it’s convenient.
M: Um.
L: And to the other parish. But when I’m praying, or when I’m reflecting and sitting there, I’m actually more back in touch with who I was and where I was when I would go to St. Ann’s – St. Austin’s in Austin. You know, I’ve just, you know, just really praying, you know.
M: Um.
L: Just me, you know. And I don’t have any huge need, you know, to have, you know, that responsibility. And maybe it’s – and I’ve told some of my priest confreres, you know, when we talked about it - and I said, you see, different Ira Verdell Lott 40
from some of the priests whom I’d supervised who had only known the life...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...their identity was...
M: You had – yeah, you had another life.
L: Involved. Myself was there before I went. Some of the priests whose identity, you know, it’s enmeshed.
M: Uh-huh.
L: You know, in the functioning in that. I...that was...
M: The other thing is, though, that you’re doing what you have, quote, preached.
L: Oh.
M: You told your students that... have you ever asked?
L: Oh.
M: What is it that you wanted?
L: What do I want? Yes.
M: And you have stated that at this stage of your life you have said this is what I want.
L: This is what I want and I’d like, in terms of my...the Oblate priests, you know, they are very, very supportive, you know. Like even Dave, he’s not an Oblate, he said,”Ira, man, if you need anything, check me out, you know, let me know.”
M: Yeah.
L: That’s the relationship.Ira Verdell Lott 41
M: Yeah.
L: And we’ve...and that my relationship, you know, with the Oblates is still...
M: There.
L: There. It...I...[inaudible] when I go back, when we were in...when I met the other black priests, and when I met some nuns and people, many of them talk about how horrible things were for them. And they had lots of stories about how the racism and that...
M: Um.
L: And I never really had any of those stories. And they could never believe me when I told them that my...what racism that I would find with the Oblates would be the same kind of dense attitude of just whites in general.
M: Uh-huh.
L: But that I didn’t, I’ve never – just the contrary...
M: Uh-huh.
L: That the people whom I have – as far as my, you know, my development... Now I’ve had some guys who were in positions of authority, but – and the problem that I had with them had to do with their incompetence. Now that’s whether they were white or whether they were black.
M: Yeah.
L: It didn’t have anything to do with...
M: With competence. Ira Verdell Lott 42
L: You know, incompetence.
M: It’s our mutual intolerance of incompetence.
L: Intolerance. I had one...
M: Yeah.
L: ...One person who was extremely rigid, not open to anything, and another person who frankly was just dumb, you know. And yet he was in a position of authority. Now he was not an Oblate. This was at St. Elizabeth’s.
M: I want to ask you something, Ira. And this may not even be tape stuff, but as an individual, at this point, and as a priest, do you feel that as a priest you had responsibilities beyond yourself?
L: Um.
M: And that what you’re dealing with now...
L: Um.
M: ...is that you are responsible only for yourself? And do not have responsibilities, beyond yourself?
L: Um.
M: And that you reached a point, when you talk about burn-out, that you no longer wanted to be responsible for anything beyond yourself? And that you still contain the beliefs and all the other things...
L: You know, I think that...
M: ...that are part of being a priest?
L: That’s exactly where I am. I’m going to reflect on Ira Verdell Lott 43
that more, you know, tonight. Because that’s exactly... yeah, when I had those, had those responsibilities, which were...
M: And you were tired.
L: ...beyond me. You know what I mean. And I...right now I don’t have that...
M: That’s the only thing that’s different.
L: ...response, but that is exactly correct.
M: Because in yourself and in your life, you are leading a priestly life, there’s nothing different.
L: ...[inaudible].
M: Yeah, you know, the difference is that you have responsibility for nothing beyond yourself.
L: I guess. And interacting with people. Sometimes I’ll see some of the street people, you know, and I will do something. And it really, you know, is out of kindness or, L: you know. And I’ll say, did I do that because I was a priest or...?
M: Or because I wanted to?
L: Or I wanted to. But it was because I wanted to. It didn’t have anything, and that frankly, I think, I’m not sure, I’m going to put this on it – why it bothers me even when I’m at the library, they call me Mr. Lott or Ira. I love it. And then they know that I’m a priest...
M: Uh-huh.Ira Verdell Lott 44
L: You know, and we talk about it and that type thing. But it would...it bothers me when...if they would put that cloak on me.
M: The collar.
L: Yes. That jacket, as we would say. Something is running through my mind, and I can’t think of it. Why that – oh, I remember the other night, Jo Plyler[?], who is the department director at the – down where I do the volunteer work. We were there at a lecture one night, and she was introducing me to one of the Friends of the Library - one of their board members. She was wanting to...and she was saying, “Oh, I want you to meet Ira, and we’re so happy to have him to, you know, coming up, you know, doing volunteer work.” And I think to myself, “Jo, that is enough. You know just let it be.” You know. And this is Ira Lott and we’re so happy to have him. You know, he comes up and he likes the thing. And I was thinking. So I thought about it
L: and I know that that was on Jo’s mind, you see. But there was no reason to tack on there, He is a Roman Catholic priest.”
M: Uh-huh.
L: It was – this is Ira Lott and we’re happy to have him. And so that my relationship with that woman...
M: Uh-huh.
L: ...could be based on the service. Ira Verdell Lott 45
M: That you’re providing.
L: That I am providing.
M: ...[inaudible].
L: You know, and not the fact that I – does that make any sense to you?
M: Oh, yes, yes.
L: And that fits in with...
M: Yeah.
L: What the...the way. But clearly that the responsibilities were beyond my...[inaudible].
M: See, and the minute that I introduce you as retired priest...
L: Yeah.
M: It puts responsibilities back on you to behave in a certain way or say things...
L: ...[inaudible].
M: Or meet other people’s expectations...
L: Expectations.
M: ...[inaudible].
L: You don’t...you know what I mean.
M: Yeah.
L: Then what does, you know.
M: Otherwise you’re into the same thing but...
L: But it’s...
M: It’s how they perceive you.Ira Verdell Lott 46
L: It how they perceive me. But that might not bother anybody else. But I like it, you know, and this, you know, Mr. Lott – you know what I mean.
M: See, people come with expectations of priesthood and fatherhood.
L: And they...
M: And they lay it on; they lay it on.
L: And it’s, you know. And...but I...but to just to relate to me, it...and, yeah, and then sometimes people say, “Well, is that fair to people, you know, that if all of a sudden that part of you is not known?” And I say, ”Well, you know, it turns off the...
END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 2.